Spirals
by Northern Wolfwillow
Summary: Set near the end of the "Return of the King," Frodo won't live to see Aragorn's coronation unless Gandalf and Sam discover a secret from his past in time to save him. Based on the movies.
1. Deep Water

Spirals by Northern Wolfwillow

Chapter One

Deep Water

It was coming again.

Frodo's throat tightened, and he fought down waves of nausea and of panic, coughing and choking, as if the ash that blanketed Minas Tirith had found its way in through the thick cloth hanging over the windows and the doorways of his room. His heart raced, and a crushing pain spread across his chest. The stone walls of his guest room leaned inward towards him, so he threw himself off his bed, gasping as he landed in deep, ice cold water.

He would have cried out, but the sudden shock of cold stole his breath away. His feet did not find bottom, and he slid under the water into darkness so complete he could not see his hand before his face. He thrashed frantically through dark water, reaching out - for what?

He was terrified that he would not find - what? This frantic feeling was so familiar. _It's my fault. It's all my fault. _

And then it was over. He was kneeling on the stone floor of his room, his night shirt plastered to his chest with sweat. He leaned back against the bed, pulled his legs around in front of him, and sat still, gasping.

_Nightmares are one thing, but to be plunged into a living nightmare… it has something to do with the Ring. It has to be._

_Just three more days._ _I have to make it to Aragorn's coronation in three-day's time. For Aragorn. _The thought of honouring his friend strengthened his resolve, then a small voice asked: _And then? What if it keeps happening? How can I keep going? _

Frodo clenched his eyes shut and tried to look ahead to the days after the coronation, to his return to the Shire, but he could only see all the days to be gotten through stretching on and on, and he was overcome again with a nameless dread. _I should be looking forward to going home to the Shire. It was all I thought about all those days that I carried the Ring. _

_That's enough of this. I'm finally well enough to start searching for some answers. I'll read everything I can find about the Ring. There has to be some way forward from here. This can't be what my life will always be. If the wind is calm today and the ash is not stirring, I'll walk outside to the City's library, not inside along these long stone corridors. I have to get outside – it's been days since I've seen the sky. _

Frodo rose and lit a candle. He dressed quickly, hurrying because he could not escape the feeling that he was running out of time.

Sam shot bolt upright in bed, his breath coming in ragged gulps.

Slowly he realized where he was – and more importantly - where he wasn't.

_It's all right. I'm in Minas Tirith. I didn't do it. I didn't have to do it. Frodo is alive. He's here, just down the hallway._

As Sam sat waiting to catch his breath, waiting for his heart to stop pounding in his chest, he finished the thought grimly - _and Frodo might as well be a thousand miles away from me. Can I ever make this right between us? I have to. I have to, but I haven't the slightest idea how. _He swung his legs over the side of his bed, taking a moment to feel the cool stones beneath his feet. _Not like in the nightmare. _But knowing it was just a dream brought Sam no comfort. Regret and shame tightened like a knot in his chest. _How could I have done it? _

He didn't bother to light a candle. After so many days waking up in his shuttered room, he knew where everything was in his guest room, so he moved through the dark by memory and touch. He found his clothes easily enough and dressed in the darkness, then paused before stepping from his chamber onto the balcony. He listened, and hearing no wind, he carefully pulled aside the heavy cloth covering and stepped out on the balcony shared with Gandalf's and Frodo's rooms. _No one else is here this morning, thank goodness._ Instantly he felt guilty for even thinking it. _How could it have come to this? We haven't talked for days. I've got to find a way to right what's gone wrong. _

As Sam walked to the balcony's stone railing, ash crunched under his feet. He kept his eyes on his feet, deliberately not looking towards the east, until he could look down at the city below by standing on his tiptoes and peering over the railing. Below, he could see the relief tents that had been set up on each tier of the city to provide food and shelter to the homeless. _So much to do, and I've been no help since I fell ill. _

_That cursed mountain has turned the White City grey_. All the people he had talked to were very grateful that the evil to the east had been destroyed, but they were unprepared for what had followed. After the Ring had been destroyed and Mount Doom shattered, the volcano threw geysers of ash high in the air, day after day, and the wind carried it into the City. Everyone had expected only good to come now, but something was wrong with the wind itself. _They keep telling me that the wind should come from the south and the west, but now it always comes from the north and the east._ Some days the wind laid a choking blanket of ash over the city, while other days the ash stayed high in the air, giving the city a roiling grey roof that blocked the sun. Everyday cinders settled on the City, clinging to everything. They looked powdery and light, but they were nothing like wood ash. Sam moved away from the balustrade, his hands leaving prints. He brushed the ash from his hands, frowning at the gritty feel of pulverized stone.

_One good rain would wash all this away, but there hasn't been a drop in days. How will crops ever grow again when everything green has been smothered?_

No wind stirred the ash within the city today. The dawn was stifling and still. To Sam it seemed like the day was breathlessly waiting for something to happen.

In just a few days, people from across Middle Earth would arrive to celebrate Aragorn's coronation. Sam wanted to see the ceremony more than anything else, but somehow all of this didn't seem right. Aragorn deserved a special day, but the city had been torn apart by war and now it was shrouded in ash. _It should be a day to remember – something to tell the Old Gaffer over a pint or two._

Home. _Just t__hree_ _more days._ _Three more days at most, and we can start for home. _The end was in sight. The hobbit had the overwhelming urge to leave at once, to get as far away from this cold city as he could. He could not bring himself to lift his eyes and look east toward the jagged peaks that marked the edge of Mordor. Thoughts of Mordor always brought him back to his betrayal. The weight of his guilt rested on his chest, making it hard to breathe. The walls themselves seemed to be crowding in on him from all sides.

I have to get out of this white stone box. I have to find somewhere to think. Somewhere green. There has to be a way to make things right. I don't know how, but I must keep trying. Sam leaned his back against the railing. The need for him to do something was unbearable. Breathe. I have time – there's no race to the Mountain to destroy that thing. Even if it takes until we're all back in the Shire, I'll find a way to make this right. There's time yet. There's time.

The weight he carried felt a little bit lighter as he stood on the grass that encircled the White Tree. It lifted his spirits just to feel warm earth beneath his feet again, even if the blades of grass were gritty with ash, and even if the lawn was only a small patch in the vast stone Citadel at the very top of Minas Tirith. Sam spread his cloak on the lawn and lay down on it.

_What I wouldn't give to sleep through the night and wake up to a morning's work in the garden._ As he lay there wondering if sleep would find him, it occurred to him that he was barely wheezing, even after climbing all those stairs and walking along all those hallways to get here. That was a hopeful sign. Although he had had to stop a few times to catch his breath, it seemed he was at last recovering from the vapours and fumes of Mordor. _That's a relief. Maybe with time I'll feel like my old self again. After all, I have to be fit enough to make my living when I get home. _ He turned on his side and rested his hand on the grass beside him. He was quite fond of this lawn ever since the Eagle had laid him gently on it.

Sam remembered the feeling of flying. He had opened his eyes and had found himself in mid-air. He had wondered vaguely if some fell beast had him in his clutches, but the wings spread above him had been covered in feathers. At some point in the flight, darkness had given way to blinding sunlight. _But where am I?_ Squinting into the wind, he could see a white shape below. Through watering eyes, he thought he saw a circle of green. Then he felt the touch of grass. He remembered lying face down on it, gasping and coughing, struggling to draw in clean, fresh air, grasping fists full of green, living grass. If he hadn't been so violently ill, he would have believed he had been carried all the way to the next world, because he thought he heard Gandalf's voice saying, "Sam, you and Frodo are safe. It's over now." But it couldn't be Gandalf, because he had died in Moria.

Sam closed his eyes now and smiled at how he had hated sleeping on the ground at the start of the journey. Now sleeping on grass was such a pleasant change in this city made of stone. And then the ground he was laying on gave way beneath him. It fell away, dissolved into a pool of water, and he was drowning. Water closed over his head and the weight of his pack pulled him down quickly. _This can't be happening! _With a jolt, his feet touched bottom, and he felt a brief moment of relief. _The water isn't so deep. Even if I can't swim, maybe I can push up towards the air above and steal a quick breath._ But try as he might he could get no closer to the surface. The weight of what he was carrying held him down. He tried to struggle out of his pack and push it away from him, but the straps on his shoulders were tangled and refused to let go. His struggles became more panicked as he felt something wrap itself around his feet. He tried to kick, but he couldn't pull free. Weeds, like tentacles, wrapped themselves around his legs, and then his arms. He tried to reach up towards the faint light shining through the water, but the weeds held him in place in the watery twilight. His lungs were burning, screaming for air. He couldn't last much longer. He needed to breathe. _No, don't let me die this way! _But there, in the dim light, he could just make out a hand coming down through the water. _I'm going to make it!_ He strained to reach up, but the hand stayed just out of reach …and then slowly drew away. He could hold on no longer. He gasped, felt water filling his lungs, and then…

He gasped again, but it was cool morning air he was pulling into his lungs, not water. He cried out and struggled against the tangled thing that imprisoned his arms, and at last he threw his cloak back and was free.

Sam heard someone call out nearby. He scrambled to his knees, his right hand automatically reaching for his belt, but he could find no sword there. In a muddled way, he paused long enough to marvel at how much he had changed: reaching for a sword is not usually a hobbit's first reaction on waking.

_But where am I?_ _That isn't Frodo's voice. It isn't a call for help. Not Gollum's hiss. It's __ …_

… a very annoyed baker. He was shouting and running towards Sam, stirring up puffs of ash with each stride. At last, Sam had his bearings once again. He was on the Citadel by the White Tree.

"Oi, boy, what do you think you're doing so close to the Sacred Tree?"

Sam slowly rose to his feet then watched as the colour drained from the baker's ruddy face. The hobbit smiled ruefully. _His face is almost as white as the flour on his apron. _

"Forgive me, little sir - Master Hobbit. I didn't see anyone lying there until I heard a cry, and then up you popped. I couldn't imagine who would be so near the Tree … would never have guessed, I don't think, even if I'd guessed for a very long time…"

"I just came up here to get some fresh air, and I must have fallen asleep. I'm very sorry. I didn't mean any harm."

"No, no, of course not. No need to be sorry. Not after all you've done for us. Well, I reckon you can sleep anywhere you please. Here, let me shake your hand, Young Master. The horror to the East is gone, and it's all your doing. _Ah,_ _he has me confused with Frodo. _

The baker kept talking faster and faster, all the while brushing the ash off the hobbit's clothes, "Let me help you with this mess. If only the wind hadn't shifted and brought all this muck into the City. Ah, my wife will never believe I met you when I came out of the kitchen to smoke my pipe. There used to be four Guards of the Citadel here at all times, but I guess there are more urgent tasks now than guarding the Tree. I thought I'd better check why someone was so close to it. We're very protective of our Tree, you know."

Sam could stand the well-intended battering no more, and stepped out of the man's reach. "Well, sir," he said, turning his full attention to the bare branches towering above him, "I earn my living gardening, and I'd say your Tree needs less protection and more water. See - it's drawn all the water out of this stone pool at its feet. Here - feel how dry the soil is beneath the grass." He bent down and pushed a finger into the powdery soil of the grass nearest the White Tree. As he brushed the dirt and ash from his hand, he speculated, "I'm pretty sure the Tree's roots extend under the paving stones to this section of grass. I imagine everyone has been much too busy to notice how dry it is up here – lots of important things to do. And spring has come late to this Tree, hasn't it? All that unnatural darkness from Mordor, I've no doubt. So your Tree might use a bit of tending, I'd say."

"A bit of tending!" laughed the baker. "It's been dead these ages. Dead trees don't need water, so it couldn't have drawn the water out of the pool."

"Dead? No, look, the buds are just now swelling on its branches."

"No …" the baker looked up at the branches framed against the hazy yellow morning sky. "Yes! Yes, I see! Wait here! Wait here!" cried the Gondorian. He ran back towards the castle, stirring up small clouds of ash with each step, leaving Sam puzzled and surprised. _How strange,_ _and I've seen some strange things latel_y. _There's nothing so natural as trees coming back to life after a long hard winter. These people need to get out of their stone rooms more often. _

As he stood waiting to see what would happen next, he thought about the reason he had called out in his sleep, his nightmare. _Well, I guess this is progress. At least it wasn't my usual nightmare._

Suddenly Sam was surrounded by the entire kitchen crew and a dozen guards that clustered around the Tree. They pointed and talked and laughed, and then the baker clapped him on the back almost knocking him over. One of the junior guards was sent back to make a report, and soon a succession of men, each more elegantly dressed than the last, traveled between the stone hall and the tree, sending up small plumes of ash in their wake. And finally Aragorn joined the large crowd beneath the Tree.

Aragorn smiled at him, "You bring me good news, Samwise. It has been an age since the Tree has shown any sign of life." It looked like it had been an age since Aragorn had smiled. Sam couldn't remember seeing those deep furrows in Aragorn's brow, like the weight of many years had fallen on him all at once.

Sam smiled back, then reached up and grasped the only twig within his reach, and twisted it. He was pleased when it didn't immediately snap in his hand, dry and dead. Instead, it bent before it finally gave way. But his satisfaction didn't last long - he jumped back as swords were drawn and pointed at him. Aragorn stepped between Sam and the guards.

"Aragorn, my Lord Aragorn, er…King Aragorn … I was just checking to see if this branch showed signs of life." He held up his hand to Aragorn to show him the bud unbundled, looking like seeds, with one end white and one end tinged with green. "Looks like this tree will blossom before it leafs out, like a cherry tree does."

Aragorn gave Sam a quick smile, then turned back to the guards and said sternly, "It is all right. Put away your weapons. This is the new Royal Gardener. Follow his instructions on all matters of gardening as if they were my own."

Turning back to him, Aragorn said in a low voice, "Sam, you can still call me Aragorn – or even Strider, if you prefer ... otherwise, I doubt I will hear that name again." He smiled and this time his eyes smiled too, "When I heard that one of our guests had discovered that the White Tree lives, I thought it might be you. I don't have time to look after the Tree, and this is your area of expertise. So what needs to be done? "

Sam couldn't raise his voice above a whisper, "It needs water."

Aragorn's reply was a whisper too, "Good. Tell them what to do."

Sam looked up into the faces of the men standing around him and felt a bit uncomfortable at his new and unexpected role of Royal Gardener. He took a deep breath and said in a loud but friendly voice, like he might have used in the Green Dragon Pub, "Right, with so many here to lend a hand, we should organize a bucket brigade to bring water to the Tree. Let's refill this pool and water the grass to give the tree roots a good drink."

Aragorn turned to his aide, "Choose the men for the task and send the rest away. The brigade will be under the command of Samwise Gamgee." He placed his hand briefly on Sam's shoulder then turned and walked swiftly back to the Great Hall.

Sam sighed. What a relief to have found something useful he could do. What a relief to at last find something he could put right.

Frodo stepped from the shadows into the heat of the day. Directly overhead was a round glowing haze where the sun should have been. With the wind calm for the moment, it was safe for everyone to venture out, and many people were doing just that. Everything was a uniform grey from the ash-covered paving stones to the stone wall. The ash-covered world looked unreal to his eyes, like the ghost of a city. _Will it ever rain? _As he wended his way down the spiraling City, it felt as though the tops of the high stone walls that towered over him were leaning towards each other. He felt no freer here than he did inside his stone guest room.

The desiccated air from the north-east seemed to be drawing away every bit of moisture in the city. He felt a tickle of pain in the back of his head. His temples began to throb. _The heat must be bringing on this headache –_ _all_ _this relentless heat._

He felt dizzy for the second time this morning. Grey spots danced in front of his eyes and the street swam before him. He couldn't remember the last time he had eaten. He had had no appetite lately, so he only ate when it was absolutely necessary, and it was necessary now. The library, and what he could find out about the Ring, would have to wait. He turned to work his way towards the great dining hall of the castle.

As he walked along the streets, he felt the oddest sensation, as if there were an invisible barrier between him and everyone else around him. Whenever he approached a group of people, he averted his eyes, yet he saw their heads move together after they spotted him, he heard them whispering, and he felt eyes on his back as he walked past them. No one used to notice him. He wished it were that way again. He wished he could sink down. Disappear.

He had reached one of the gateways leading up from one level of the city to the next. Great hinges hung from the gateposts, but the shattered gate had been removed. He paused to catch his breath, and then he noticed her, framed in the doorway. He was sure no one had been there a moment before. The girl stood directly in front of him, looking straight at him. Frodo met her gaze and couldn't look away. _Blue eyes, the colour of wildflowers._ As she looked into his eyes without blinking, he wondered what her story was. _Who has she lost? Has her home been destroyed? Did she lose her father in the war? Was her family killed when their home was destroyed during the battle here in the City? _

Suddenly he wondered how much of the damage around him had happened while he stood with the Ring in his hand refusing to do what had to be done. His guilt redoubled. _If only I had been faster… if I had taken a more direct route to Mordor… if I hadn't stopped to rest… if only I had had the strength to destroy the Ring right away …if only I hadn't wasted all those moments at the precipice – maybe someone she loved wouldn't have died. _Frodo clenched his eyes shut. And an image flashed through his mind– a place – and a sound – and then it was gone. When he opened his eyes, the gateway stood empty.

Frodo stepped through the gate, trying to spot the girl somewhere on the street ahead. She was ahead of him now, moving like light, flashes of white, as she wove between the adults – there and then gone. _She's too young to be out in the streets alone._ As he rounded a turn further down the street, Frodo was choking, his throat clenched, and he knew there was no way to escape whatever what coming, but he had to keep going. He had to find her.

It was pitch dark, and he was running through a corn field; the plants were green and tall. It was taking too much time. _Where is she? I don't know which way to run._ He tripped on stone, and he could feel himself falling. He reached out to break his fall, and his palm slammed into a stone wall sending a jolt of pain though his bandaged finger stump.

As quickly as he had been plunged into night, it was bright daylight once again, and he was outside one of the temporary hospitals near the Houses of Healing on the third level of Minas Tirith.

Frodo's heart pounded and pinpoints of light flashed before his eyes. For a moment he thought he would pass out, and one thought pushed aside everything else. _It's still happening!_ _My waking eyes see things that are not real._ To bear the stabbing pain in his shoulder, like the thrust of the Morgul blade, was one thing, but to never know when he might be suddenly plunging into chaos and darkness was another - to never know when the world around him would disappear, and he would find himself in the midst of what he feared the most - _I'd rather be dead than lose my mind._ _I don't know how I can go on. I have to find the reason this is happening. There must be a reason._

Cradling his throbbing hand, Frodo turned and stumbled back the way he came, frantic to get out of the oppressive heat and the sounds and smells of this city still so wounded.

END OF CHAPTER ONE


	2. Ashes

Spirals by Northern Wolfwillow

CHAPTER TWO

Ashes

"Hurry!" she cried. Frodo started because he thought he was alone, but when he turned to his right, but there was no woman there. _Who said that? Who is she? I think I know her voice._ A chill traveled up his back. _More proof – I'm losing my mind!_

As his heart rate slowed, he clutched the table before him with his good hand and sat up straighter on the stone bench in the great dining hall. It was just as well that he had chosen a table as far away from everyone else as possible. Maybe no one had noticed his strange behavior.

He looked down at the food on the plate before him. It had no taste. It was like eating ashes. Each mouthful caught in his throat as he tried to swallow it. He glanced behind him at the other tables where men were laughing and eating. _There's nothing wrong with the food. There's something wrong with me._ Frodo pushed the food round and round his plate.

_It was bad enough before, but now it is worse. _At first, when he had put on the Ring, it had brought him into that nightmare world of his worst fears, but he could end it by taking off the Ring. Then he had not dared to wear the Ring through much of his journey because images of Sauron had flashed before his waking eyes. And then in Mordor - he had no idea what had been real there. He had just kept moving through the horrors he saw before him until he stood on the brink of the fire. Maybe what happened at the Crack of Doom hadn't been real either. _No, that part was real – I did make that choice._

Hope. As he waited to die there on the slopes of Mount Doom, there had been a moment of hope. With the Ring gone, he could at last remember the Shire, green and peaceful. Yes, he had just made a terrible mistake, but surely he could be forgiven. And he did believe he had been ushered into a place of peace and rest, because the next thing he saw was Gandalf standing before him, bathed in light. That morning when he awoke in Minas Tirith, he had felt free of his guilt, as if he were forgiven. When he realized he was still alive, he had dared to hope again that everything that had happened was behind him forever. The air that morning was sweet, and he could hear songbirds. He had felt such intense joy during the reunion with the Fellowship, and then he had felt such intense relief - they were safe. He had even dared to hope that the nightmare visions had ended and that everything would be all right.

But it wasn't all right. He next awoke to the cacophony of scavengers. Ravens feasted in the fields below Minas Tirith while the healers did what they could for the wounded that had been collected before the shattered City Gates. Those who then survived were moved into the city, leaving the birds to their unspeakable banquet. The smell of death was strong. All that had befallen him over the past weeks and months finally took its toll. The last bit of strength that had carried him this far fell away. He was exhausted, every small movement sent waves of pain through his muscles, and the burns on his face, arms, and legs stung again. But he told himself that all he needed was time and rest.

Then the wind shifted and a storm of ash poured over the city, and a haze of grit hung in the air. The ravens fled and the survivors sought refuge inside from the choking, dusty downpour. To keep out the ash, makeshift coverings were strung across windows and passageways that had once been open to the air and the light. Outside, neither lantern light nor sound could pierce the ash fall. Inside, stifling, shuttered rooms grew as silent as the grave.

The young and the old were the most vulnerable to what the wind brought, and so were Sam and Frodo. The ash and the acrid air compounded the damage done to their lungs in Mordor. The Mountain of Fire seemed to be reaching out for them even here in Minas Tirith. Frodo knew with every breath he took that he hadn't escaped Mordor after all.

He could remember the night that he fell ill. He was alone in his chamber, entombed in the claustrophobic dark. All he could hear was his own struggle for air. He could not catch his breath if he lay down, so he sat in his bed, propped up by pillows, cradling his throbbing left hand – surprised that the sharpest pain came from the finger no longer there. _How can something that's gone still hurt so much?_ A weight seemed to be pushing down upon him. His world had narrowed down to concentrating on his next breath. He tried to take only shallow breaths because frantic gasps for air only triggered a wrenching cough that strained aching muscles and cracked ribs. He was exhausted, but he would not let himself fall asleep because it felt as if he had to will each breath to come, that he was drawing each breath one after the other by sheer force of will. And so that night passed.

Besides ash, the unnatural eastern winds carried the stench of death into the city from the fields below. There were not enough able-bodied men to dig graves, and there was not enough earth to cover the corruption left after the battle. In the morning, as the ash-fall lightened, they began to burn the bodies in the field.

And the wind carried the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh into the city.

That was the last thing he remembered clearly - that smell finding its way into his room, and the wave of nausea and horror – and recognition. He wondered how he knew that sweet stench so well. Then he gasped in pain because it felt like something inside him was tearing, something that would not mend. And there was other sensation – it was as if he were floundering in deep water, and just beyond his sight, something was coming. Whatever it was would be held back no longer.And then it was upon him. He shivered in the oppressive heat as if he were lying on a block of ice. At last, he stopped struggling to hold on, and simply let go.

Three days, they told him afterwards. _Three days._ _I keep losing pieces of my life – gone - as if they never happened. _He had scattered recollections from those hellish days, brief flashes of anxious faces as he drifted in and out of consciousness, and a long blur of pain. He hung on the edge of existence, detached from the world around him, weightless.

A vast stone hall – the cries of the dying – a face appeared above him, and he heard a voice he did not know, "They both may have seemed well for a short time, but the foul vapours of Mordor have damaged their lungs, and now the ash and smoke … I have seen this happen after fires … lungs fill with fluid … like drowning. But as for this one, I cannot name this other illness…. not ague for he has no fever, yet he shivers until his teeth chatter as if he has just been pulled from cold water …No, not infection. The hand is healing … Spider venom? How large was the spider? No physical cause I can find." – then the stench of burning bodies – something pulling Frodo down below the surface again.

A smaller stone hall – the sound of Sam racked by a cough that would not end - Legolas' voice "My skills may aid Sam … there must be more that I can do for Frodo." – Gimli now "He's come through so much – this cannot be how it ends." - and Aragorn "The healing gift given to me to call those back from Darkness avails me nothing …no black art is the cause of this. Frodo, I ask for myself now, do not go! I need you here." – then the sweet smell of death and smoke - sinking back down below the pain.

Deeper in the castle – Pippin's voice "Merry, Sam is getting better now, why isn't Frodo? … after all he's been through … when he's so close to home…"- Merry, "Stay with us, Frodo." - Sam, "There must have been more I could have done. I promised to look after you …"

And then the next thing he remembered was the smell of musty books - Bilbo's study in Bag End - Gandalf and Sam talking – _Bag End where all this started - No, it started somewhere further back, somewhere else in the Shire - No, not there!_

With a start, Frodo opened his eyes, and found himself not in Bag Eng, but in a place he did not know - again. Flickering candles made islands of light in the darkness. He could make out large pieces of furniture looming above him, and mounds of books and papers covered every surface. He was sitting up, swathed in blankets, but he wasn't in a bed. He was sitting on a stone floor, propped up against a bookshelf.

He could hear Gandalf's voice from a short distance away, "It was here, Sam, that I found in the ancient manuscripts … the secret that only fire can tell … crucial to all that followed..."

Frodo remembered that his voice had cracked from disuse when he tried to ask where he was.

And suddenly Gandalf was peering down at him over a large table, replying in a cheerful voice, "The great Library and Archives of Minas Tirith. Away from the ash and smoke that has found its way into all other parts of the city. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. A refuge. Yes, a refuge. I brought Sam and you down here deep within the foundations of the city, far away from the foul air above. You'll be all right now."

Gandalf and Sam told him that during those lost days he had sometimes called out about fire and flame. Frodo couldn't remember those nightmares, and he was glad he didn't. All he wanted to do was forget.

For days now, as he lay recovering, he had tried to push down the memories of how the quest had ended, to push all the memories away when they rose to the surface, but they would not stay down. It took all his strength each day to stay on top of them - to stay afloat.

But soon enough his dreams awoke him, and soon enough on waking he remembered all the terror of his dreams. Two weeks. He had made it through thirteen nights of terror and fourteen days of regret. But now what he feared was breaking out of his dreams and into his waking world, just as it had happened in Mordor.

It's getting worse, not better, and I don't know how I can go on… but I have to. Just a little longer. I promised myself I would see Aragorn crowned.

Frodo pushed away the plate of food sitting before him on the table.

_Let me seek what answers I can find about the Ring in the Library. Let me try that. Maybe there is a way forward. _Frodo started to leave the dining hall, but his determined step slowed as he passed a table where a boisterous conversation was taking place. The men were talking about the White Tree - that it had come back to life thanks to one of the hobbits. Frodo lingered long enough in the doorway to catch the details, and smiled to himself. _Sam must be in his glory tending to that Tree. Good for you, Sam_. And then he stopped in mid-step. _I haven't seen Sam for ages._ _I'm living among as many people here in one place as live in the whole Shire, but I've never felt so alone. _

Frodo changed direction in the corridor. Instead of heading down to the library, he started walking up the passageways and up the stairways to the top of the City. Just before he stepped out onto the Citadel, he stopped to catch his breath. _Before all this, I'd never have to rest like this after simply climbing stairs and walking._ He wondered if the damage done to his lungs was permanent. _Nothing will ever be the same again._

He drew aside the cloth covering at the end of the passageway and looked out. The sky was a glowing yellow haze, and the Citadel reflected back a blazing grey. He froze. The very thought of stepping outside again after what had happened near the hospital just an hour before filled him with fear. He stood rooted in place, squinting into the glare. In the distance, he could see Sam beside the Tree.

_I can't stay here forever. I have to talk to Sam. _He squared his shoulders and stepped forward to join Sam.

From his new vantage point, he could now see that on the other side of the ghostly tree there was a line of men stretching back to a castle entrance. Every so often, they passed something along man-to-man and then back again, a bucket brigade. Something flashed before his eyes for an instant – another line, but not here on the Citadel – and then just as suddenly that image was gone and the Citadel was back again. He shuddered. _I've seen this once before – but where? It must mean something – but what?_ Then he gasped. And gasped again. He couldn't catch his breath. His heart pounded, and he felt dizzy. Panic rose like sour bile in his throat. He was suffocating.

His legs couldn't hold him up. He pushed himself back into the shade of the corridor, reached out for the wall to steady himself - but there was no wall there, and despite his frantic efforts to keep his balance, he felt himself start to fall.

END OF CHAPTER TWO


	3. Flames

Spirals by Northern Wolfwillow

CHAPTER THREE

Flames

Frodo struggled to keep his feet while the world around him came apart. He lost his balance and fell back, still reaching out for the wall that was no longer there. He landed hard on the grass.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of white. As he turned his head, he saw a child running away from him. She paused for a moment and turned towards him; it was the little girl he had seen in the street earlier today. He wanted to call out to her, but he didn't have the breath to speak because the air around him was suddenly full of smoke. All he could manage was to remain crouching on all fours, retching and gasping, unable to reach out to her.

***

It was late evening. Frodo stood at the very peak of the Citadel and closed his eyes to the darkness. It was like standing at the bow of the great stone ship. Around the edge of the entire Citadel ran a low stonewall – except for this one place where he stood.

He felt a great heat to his right and heard the crackling of flames. He turned to face a man on fire. He saw and felt a rush of flames pass him by and the ball of flames went over the lip of the Citadel and was falling into the darkness below. To his horror, Frodo thought he saw a hand reach out to him from the flames. Frodo reached too late. And there was darkness again.

Then he came to himself. He had fallen onto his knees on the Citadel and was choking on the ash he had stirred up.

As he kneeled there in the breach between the stone railings, he looked over the edge, straight down to the city gates far, far below. He could see nothing but empty streets and plazas. Gasping and dizzy, he leaned forward again, then felt a hand on his shoulder. Someone pulled him back from the edge, turned him around, and then guided him so he was sitting with his back against the low stonewall beside the breach.

"Here, lean back and catch your breath."

Frodo knew that voice, and when his eyes stopped watering from the coughing fit, he could just make out the face in the hazy moonlight.

Faramir sat down beside Frodo, and looked straight ahead, back across the Citadel towards the White Tree and the Great Hall, pale shapes in the distance. The last time Frodo had seen Faramir, they had been eye-to-eye as well. Faramir had knelt down to tell Frodo he was letting him leave with the Ring to complete his quest.

At last Frodo gasped out a question, "Did you see …?" and coughs racked him again.

Faramir said, "What?"

Glancing down at Frodo, seeing he was struggling for breath, Faramir continued, "I couldn't sleep, so I went for a walk. From a distance, I thought you might be Pippin. I saw you stumble and …"

So you only saw me. Of course, what I saw wasn't real.

Faramir glanced at Frodo, nodded and said, "I have breathed the noxious air of the Dead Marshes, and it was foul enough. I can't imagine what you were breathing as you crossed Mordor and then stood at the Crack of Doom." He paused then with a wry smile asked, "How is your friend faring – Sam - your gardener-bodyguard?"

"He is well," Frodo replied quickly, all the while thinking, _I don't know._ _It's been days since I've seen him, _Then a new thought occurred to him. _Is Sam all right? He had the Ring with him only a few hours, but it was at its greatest strength. What damage did it do? What seeds did it plant?_

"I hear that Sam tends the White Tree now." Faramir moved his head in the general direction of the Tree far ahead of them in the centre of the stone courtyard. "It's coming back to life as the prophecies foretold. As the legend said, it was waiting for the King to return - and perhaps it was waiting for the right gardener."

Frodo nodded once, still fighting to slow down his breathing.

Faramir waited, and hearing nothing, he continued, his demeanor suddenly serious, "There are words I need to say. They weigh heavily on my heart."

Frodo looked up into his eyes, "Then you must say them.

Faramir was silent for a moment, seemingly at a loss as to where to begin. "The blood of many generations of Gondor has been shed to keep the scourge of Mordor at bay. Gandalf tells me your lands were untouched until that creature Gollum directed the Black Riders there to search for the One Ring."

"There has been peace for many years," Frodo answered. Your people and the Rangers – we didn't know all that you were doing to protect us. The last time hobbits fought to protect the Shire was long ago - the Battle of Greenfields. One of Pippin's ancestors was the hero of the day. He led a force that repelled a raiding party of Orcs."

Faramir smiled, "Yes, Pippin. Were you both raised to be warriors for your people - to be prepared should evil return to your lands?"

"No," Frodo shook his head and smiled at the thought.

"Then," said Faramir, "I admire you the more for what you did on behalf of us all. Sons of Gondor expect to give their blood to hold back the enemy. It was not so with you. You chose more than once to go on when you could have turned back. I admire that. Gondor will never forget what you did for our people. A thousand years of protecting your homeland was paid in full, and more. I know it was at great personal cost…" His voice trailed off.

Frodo grew very still. _Can he guess the real cost?_

Faramir looked down at his hands, swallowed, then looked Frodo in the eyes again. "Forgive me. I believe my actions might have turned that creature - your guide - against you."

Frodo sighed. "Even though you used me to capture Gollum, you were acting with good intentions. And in the end, you made the right choice. If you had kept the Ring for Gondor, everything would have ended differently."

Faramir looked away, "Yes, good intentions. All my life I was never certain if I was making the right choices or just making the choices that would please my father - until that moment."

"You risked your life so I could finish my task. Your intentions were very clear that day."

Faramir shook his head. "I wonder … I wonder if even then I made that choice thinking that it would end…" He stopped short, looked away, then back to Frodo, and started again, "I did not think you and Sam would survive."

"Nor did I." Frodo remembered Pippin telling him the story of Faramir's valiant, futile ride back to Osgiliath at his father's command. Frodo looked intently at him as if he were seeing him now for the first time. Looking into his eyes, he recognized the sad intensity he saw there. "You also know what it is like to return when you had expected to die. I thought that I had made the last choice I would ever have to make…."

"…that I had lived the last day I'd ever have to live…" added Faramir.

"…that I had said the last goodbye's I'd ever have to say."

"You promised."

With a startled gasp, Frodo turned from Faramir towards the woman seated to his left, and managed to stammer, "Wh-What?" His heart missed a beat, and his right hand flew to his chest. All his senses were vibrating.

But there was no one there by the breach in the wall. Frodo turned back as Faramir said, in some confusion, "I didn't say anything."

Frodo could think of nothing else to say.

Frodo carefully placed his bandaged left hand on the top of the low wall to pull himself up, wincing at the pain in his shoulder. Faramir was quickly on his feet and helped Frodo to get up.

"It's an old wound," Frodo said off-handedly as he stood resting against the wall, his back to the long drop. _That was stupid._ _I forgot about my shoulder. _"It's strange how you can forget about something like that."

Faramir's response caught Frodo by surprise, "Some wounds never heal." Faramir turned to look out towards Mordor. "I've lost my brother and my father recently… although I lost my father long before he fell in flames from this very spot."

Frodo could hear the snap of the flames, and he could feel the intense heat. He slowly turned his head to see beside him in the breach a crackling fire, and inside the flames, something moved – some one moved – a man's hand reached for him … and then the flames were gone. Panic rose in Frodo. He turned quickly back to face Faramir. _Let me find the right things to say, so I can leave this place. _ "I'm sorry for your loss. I came up here for fresh air, and I wanted to look down on the city. I became dizzy. Thank you for helping me, but I'll be all right now." As Frodo strode away, the only thing he was sure of was that he wouldn't be all right. _Was that Faramir's father beside me just now? No, I've never even seen a picture of Faramir's father, and there was something familiar about the man._

The constant guilt of his waking hours was bad enough, but not knowing if what was around him was real was so much worse. _I can't face this if there is no end in sight. I have to find some answers, I have to make sense of all this – I have to find a way._

Frodo stopped short when he realized where he was. In his haste to get away he taken a route he had not intended to take. He was standing before the entrance to the passageway that he had stood in earlier in the day – the passageway where he had seen Sam by the Tree, the passageway where his world had changed before his very eyes. He felt the perverse need to do what he feared most. He swallowed hard and made himself draw aside the covering and step from the Citadel into the corridor.

And nothing happened. He squared his shoulders, and set off down the stone hallway. Rounding the first curve of the corridor, Frodo stopped. She was standing in front of him, not ten feet away. The little girl in the white dress fixed her blue large eyes on him.

_What is a child doing here, at the top of the castle, so late? _ He wondered angrily. W_here is her mother or her father or her brother?_ Before he could say a word to her, the child smiled, turned, and ran away, ran towards a table that stood further down the corridor. She laughed as she ran, and as she ran, the marble walls beside her changed to panels of wood. Ahead of the girl, Frodo could now see that two figures sat at a table with their backs to a blazing hearth. The fire cast so much light that he couldn't see the faces of the two that were seated, but he could clearly see the small room he had just entered…

Then the fire from the hearth leapt towards him. A wall of flame sprang up between Frodo and the others. Through the flames, he could still see the girl. She was frightened and held out her arms to him, expecting him to help.

The walls of the paneled room melted away, and Frodo was outside in the middle of the night. He could still feel a terrible heat and the air thick with smoke and cinders. He couldn't move. He was being held back by something - by someone - and he was desperate to break free. And then he was free. But his head swam and his legs wouldn't hold up his weight. He dropped to his knees and fell forward onto his hands, gasping, retching. Darkness closed over him again.

END OF CHAPTER THREE


	4. Darkness

Spirals by Northern Wolfwillow

CHAPTER FOUR

Darkness

Sam perched uncomfortably on the edge of his chair at Frodo's bedside. He glanced back at Gandalf, who had positioned his chair at the foot of Frodo's bed. While Gandalf reclined in his chair, arms crossed, frowning at the ceiling, Sam was hunched forward, his whole body tense, his eyes on Frodo's face, waiting for him to wake up. _I can't believe that I spent so much time today tending a tree when my best friend _… He stopped. Sam had no idea what his friend had been going through today or any of the past few days. He had spent time with every other member of the Fellowship in the last few days, but not Frodo.

It had only been an hour since Sam had been awakened by voices in Frodo's chamber. He had entered Frodo's room by way of the balcony. Faramir was recounting for Gandalf how he had spoken with Frodo, but just after Frodo had left the Citadel, Faramir had heard him cry out. By the time he had arrived in the corridor, he found Frodo unconscious in one of the castle corridors, and had then carried him here.

For a very long time, the hobbit and the wizard had sat vigil in silence. Sam had tried to understand what Faramir had said about his encounter with Frodo. _Seeing things, hearing things – how horrible! With the Ring gone, I thought Frodo had left all that behind him in Mordor. _And then all these same thoughts circled once more through Sam's mind, bringing him no closer to any idea of what he could do to help Frodo.

Sam was focusing so intently on Frodo's face that Gandalf's voice startled him. "Hmmm, from across the Citadel Faramir heard Frodo cry out … something – what? -two words perhaps - 'Deel' and 'Yah.' Or one word? Diehlya? Dilyah? It may help us understand what's happening to Frodo if we could just understand the word he said, but it is as if I am once again standing outside the Gates of Moria. I cannot find the word that will open this door for me. What was Frodo saying? If it is a thing, it is a word from no language I recognize; if it is a place name, it is not somewhere I have visited in all my lifetimes."

Sam turned back once more to Frodo and tried desperately to think what the word might be. He struck on the only word that he thought sounded similar, "Gandalf, do you think Frodo could have been saying Dahlia?"

Gandalf brightened a bit, "Dahlia. Good. A flower, but also a woman's name. Who is this woman, Sam?"

Sam's enthusiasm faded. "I don't know. I mean, it's a popular name for girls in the Shire, but I can't think of anyone by that name that Frodo knows very well." He cast around in his mind, looking for something to hold onto, looking for something he could do that would help. "Gandalf, I'll go find Merry and Pippin. Frodo's kin might know. I'll go right now." He pushed himself forward and down off the chair.

And there it was again. Sam cringed inwardly as he realized he was relieved that he had an excuse to leave because he couldn't face another minute sitting there, not knowing what to do. _What kind of person - what kind of friend - would feel relieved at a time like this?_

"Very good, Sam. Although it is late, look for the others from the Fellowship too. Perhaps they know something that may help us. I'm convinced that we have to follow wherever this small clue, this name, leads us."

As Sam walked away, he could hear the wizard muttering to himself, "I have been spending so much time with Aragorn that I've missed the signs. I thought Frodo would tell me more when he was ready. I thought there would be more time …"

Frodo heard a familiar voice calling to him – a soft voice that sounded like music - Arwen. "Listen to my voice, Frodo. Come back to the light." And then she said something else – and it almost sounded like a prayer, "What grace I have, let it pass to him." It was an echo of something he had heard before and had forgotten.

He made himself come back. As he fought his way back to the waking world, he felt the familiar weight of guilt and recriminations fall back on him, but now there was a new and terrible thought. He wondered what Arwen had given up for him. _What had helping him cost her?_

He sat up in his bed, his heart pounding. Frodo pulled his knees to his chest, wrapped his arms around them and laid his head down. As he sat there, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He knew he was no longer alone in the guest room in Minas Tirith. He raised his head slowly, and before him stood Arwen, at the foot of his bed. She was wearing a bright, white gown. Moonlight was shining through the window behind her, so he could see only the outline of her face.

And then she moved, and with the light was no longer in his eyes, he saw he wasn't facing a window but a wall. On the wall across from his bed was a portrait of Arwen in a white gown – no it wasn't - because as he watched, somehow, it changed into a portrait of a little girl wearing a white sundress, the same little girl he had been seeing all day and again this night near the Citadel– a little girl with brown hair and blue eyes, like Arwen, like ... who? _Who is she?_

Then the colors in the portrait faded to white until all that was left was a sketch of the girl – charcoal lines on bright white paper. But something was wrong. Frodo could smell smoke – he could see smoke drifting across the sketch. Then the corners of the paper, touched by flame, began to blacken and curl. He threw himself off his bed and ran towards the sketch, but he couldn't reach it although he should have been able to touch it in a step or two, but it was always further ahead of him. No matter how far he ran, she was always still out of his reach. As he ran through the dark, over the rough ground, the only light came from the sparks flying through the air. He tried to breathe but the smoke was too thick. He coughed, choked, and gagged. As he sank to his knees and the rough ground seemed to rise up to meet him. _I've failed again. This is where it happens._

"It's all bad news, Gandalf." It was Sam's voice.

Frodo started and raised his head from his pillow, still half asleep, not sure if he was still dreaming. He could just make out two dark figures framed against a dark archway, slowly moving away from him. Then he could hear both Sam and Gandalf on the balcony, speaking in normal voices. He couldn't summon the will to get up, so he lay very still and listened, not entirely sure if the voices were real or part of yet another delusion.

"I found Merry and Pippin, but they couldn't think of anyone named Dahlia that Frodo would know. Gandalf, I found out it's been days since they've seen Frodo. They thought he was with me, and I thought he was with them ... it was gradual, like. We didn't notice 'til we started talking about it. I should have seen something. There has to be something I can do, Gandalf!"

Hearing this, Frodo shut his eyes and groaned inwardly.

"Sam, there is still something you can do, but it will be very difficult."

"Anything!"

"Tell me everything you can about the destruction of the Ring. Tell me what nightmares bring you out onto this balcony night after night. Don't think I haven't noticed, my boy. You have steadfastly refused to talk about what happened in Mount Doom except in the most general way. Maybe something that you both experienced is tearing Frodo away from us now. If I am to help him, you must help me."

Frodo heard the irony in Sam's voice, "White Wizards shouldn't need the help of gardeners for important things like this."

Gandalf sounded bemused as he replied, "Men and wizards, dwarves and elves should not have needed hobbits to defeat an ancient evil, but it turns out they did. Now tell me what is keeping you two apart."

Sam started speaking slowly, "I wish things could be the way they were before. I think about it during the day, and I've had lots of dreams since we were rescued by the Eagles."

Gandalf's voice held a comforting tone; "Tell me about them"

When Sam spoke again, his voice was low, "All right then. The dream … starts out the way it really happened back then - Frodo said the Ring was his, and he put it on his finger."

"At first I thought he had fallen, but he wasn't gone. I could see his footprints.

"When I looked into his eyes as he put on the Ring, there was no one there. Frodo was gone, and he wouldn't be coming back. I knew what I had to do, but I couldn't do it. I stopped dead in my tracks because this was my friend. I closed my eyes, and I thought about Rosie, and if one of those foul creatures so much as laid a hand on her … I had to stop that from happening.

"I opened my eyes, watched the footprints appearing in the loose dirt, and gauged where Frodo was, gathered my strength, and … and I threw myself …at my friend. And as my shoulder hit him square on, I wrapped my arms around him to bring him down. And then we were falling. over the edge towards the river of fire below, and the air was so hot, it was hardly air at all, just heat that scorched my skin, my eyes, my throat and seared my lungs – there was just pain. And then it happened - the Ring fell from Frodo's finger – and I can see him again. I looked into his eyes, and … it was Frodo looking back at me, the same Frodo I knew so well – the Frodo I thought that the Ring had destroyed – and he cried out to me, "Why?

"We never reach the fire. I always wake up before that happens."

After a pause, Gandalf spoke again, "A terrible dream, yes, but you did not have to do this thing. You should leave this behind you."

"No, you don't understand. The dream isn't even the worst part. The worst part is when I wake up and remember what really happened – how Gollum stepped in, and in the struggle for the Ring, over they all went - Gollum, Frodo, and the Ring – all over the edge and gone. And what do you think I was feeling as I watched it happen?"

There was only silence.

"What I can't forgive myself for – not now, not ever – is - the relief I felt."

"Relief?"

Sam's voice was strained. "Relief - because I knew in that instant that I wouldn't have to destroy the Ring. What kind of creature would feel relief when he thinks his friend is gone? Don't tell Frodo. I couldn't bear it if he knew!"

"But he does know." Frodo stepped out of the dark doorway of his chamber onto the balcony. Sam turned away to face the darkness beyond the balcony.

Sam swung around to face Frodo, drawing a sharp breath,

"There's more, isn't there?" Gandalf said. "Go on."

Sam clenched his fists, "Isn't it plain enough? Every time Mister Frodo flinches when he moves his left shoulder, I blame myself. The fire I built betrayed our location to the Ringwraiths. Mister Frodo, I almost turned you into one of those creatures because I wanted a hot meal. I was so sure Gollum was a villain. You weren't thinking straight, and I … and I began to wonder when you would turn against me.

"That night when I overheard Gollum's plan to kill us – that night you asked me to trust you – that's the night I stopped. From then on I kept an eye open for Gollum – and for you too. Then I left you at the mercy of that scheming creature. That spider would never have gotten to you if there had been two of us there. You almost died – again. Because I … because I gave up on you."

Frodo moved to stand in front of Sam, and his face had softened from its angry scowl. "Oh, Sam, I couldn't face you because I was so ashamed of what I had done. And here I've hurt you again."

"What do you mean ashamed of what you had done?"

"After all you did for me, all the times you helped me, all the times you did without, fought to save me – after all you did to get me to Mount Doom…that's where I betrayed you." Turning to Gandalf, he said, "I betrayed you all."

"Frodo! It wasn't you, it was the Ring."

"But it _was_ me," said Frodo. "Yes, I know the Ring had power over me. But what happened in Mount Doom was different. The Ring offered me a choice. I embraced it. I wanted what it offered me." He looked up at Gandalf again, "But to choose the Ring meant that I didn't care how many had suffered and died for me so that I could get to that place and destroy the cursed thing!" Frodo turned to look at Sam again, his face twisted in pain, "After all you did for me, and then I made that choice. I'm sorry."

Sam stared at Frodo, "But it wasn't your fault!"

"Sam, you saved me again. I was ready to let go and follow the Ring over the edge, but there you were reaching down, telling me not to let go. It would have been so much easier. To end it there … it would have been right…" Frodo's voice trailed off.

Gandalf sounded perplexed, "How could it have been right? You did reach up to him. And I think you did it _for_ him. If you had let go, he would have been left to grieve for you. He might have followed you over the edge or died alone in Mordor, but you didn't let that happen, did you? It might have been easier to let go, but you didn't. You've never taken the easy path, my dear boy."

In a whisper, Frodo answered, "I can't go on knowing that I chose to keep the Ring … I can never forgive myself for that."

At last, Sam felt as if he were released from a trap and his mind started working again. He had been so intent on blaming himself it had never occurred to him that Frodo was doing the same

Sam took Frodo by the shoulders, and turned him so they were facing each other. "Don't you ever blame yourself for what the Ring did to you, Mister Frodo. It wasn't your fault.

Tell me what I can do to help you."

Frodo gave Sam a quick embrace, "Oh, Sam, you _have_ helped me again. I haven't been able to talk about any of this. I haven't been able to talk to you – you, of all people! – because of the guilt I've been carrying. I'm so, so sorry."

Sam pushed Frodo back, held him at arms length, and looked into his eyes. _He's thinner now than he was in Mordor. How could I not have noticed that he was wasting away?_ "It's all right. It'll be all right. We'll go back to the Shire right after Aragorn is crowned King. We'll go home, and it will be all right."

"Yes, we can soon go home."

But Sam noticed how sad Frodo's smile was.

Gandalf stirred, "Sam, why don't you get some sleep and leave this with Frodo and me. Sleep now and know you are no monster. Frodo would never have made it back without you."

Frodo added with emphasis, looking into Sam's eyes, "That's all that matters. You did all you could."

Sam said his final good nights and stepped into his chamber. He thought, as he walked away, how short the reprieve had been: for one brief moment tonight his heart had felt light because he didn't have to carry his heavy secret anymore. Now he was deeply worried about Frodo. He had said all the right things, but Sam could tell by the look in his eyes that he didn't mean half of what he was saying.

Sam stood in the middle of his chamber, then turned around quickly so he could rejoin his friend and Gandalf on the balcony. As he was about to pull aside the cloth covering the doorway, he paused as he heard Frodo whisper, "Do you think that helped Sam?"

Gandalf answered softely, "Yes, I do." After a pause, Gandalf added, "You did an excellent job of reassuring Sam, but did any of this help you?"

Sam slowly walked into his room. It felt like his thoughts were bouncing off the white granite walls. _I have to get away from here! I can't think here._

So he picked up his cloak and the bag he had already started to pack for the journey home and ran from his room.

END OF CHAPTER FOUR


	5. Deluge

Spirals by Northern Wolfwillow CHAPTER FIVE

Deluge

Sam was relieved to finally be on the move. He knew he had to go somewhere, somewhere away from the city, where he could think, some place where he could calm his emotions and sort his thoughts one from the other - but there it was again - that pang of guilt: He felt like he was being torn in two – he knew he had to leave - but he was running away again.

Sam pushed on. He wound his way down the spiraling, vertical city, level after level, and then out the space where once huge city gates had hung. Then he turned right, heading south, walking next to the city's towering stonewalls. It seemed to take forever, but at last there were no more white walls, and he cut back towards the mountains that rose behind the White City, from which Minas Tirith had been carved. A good hour after he had walked out of his guest room, he at last stood at the foot of the ragged slope, waiting to catch his breath. And then he started to climb.

_I never thought I would want to climb so much as a hill again, let alone a mountain, but here I go._ Although he had to take his time, stopping often, he was surprised how good it felt to be outside. It was a relief to be able to think of only one thing for a while – the climb. The sun had risen, and that cheered him. It didn't matter to him that the sunlight was an odd colour, filtered through the ash high in the air above him.

At last he came to the small meadow he had spotted some days ago when he first looked down from the Citadel at the surrounding mountains. He was surprised but pleased to find that no ash had settled on the grass where he stood. _It must be sheltered from the eastern wind or else it is far enough south that the ash being carried by the wind doesn't get this far._ He unpacked from his bag a breakfast of the cheese and bread. His new friend the baker had insisted that Sam keep something from the bakery in his room to snack on. As Sam sat eating and listening to the birdsong curling up into the blue sky, he felt at peace. Looking back towards the city, he could see the haze of ash hanging over it, but here, he was clear of it all. Here, nature still thrived. He was glad that beyond the reach of Mount Doom, life was going on as usual.

At his feet he noticed wild flowers growing in the long grass. He recognized some of the flowers - the same flowers that the womenfolk weave into crowns for young brides - and he felt a pang of yearning. _Will Rosie ever wear a crown of flowers for me? _ All Sam knew for sure was that when he returned to the Shire, he would tell Rosie his true feelings and ask her hers. _No more missed opportunities. Not any more. _

His thoughts turned back to what he had just heard, and why he had to leave the city for a while.

Why am I thinking about flowers now, of all times? Because I don't want to think about the things I have to think about.

Sam's mind was like an overgrown garden neglected for too long, with too many things tangled together. His guilt felt like a solid knot in the centre of the tangle.

For weeks now Sam had been telling himself that everything would be all right once the four hobbits were back in the Shire, but he really hadn't thought about what his life would be like after he returned. His mind had been trapped in a loop – going over and over how he had failed Frodo – and how he blamed Frodo for the choice Frodo had made in Mount Doom although it couldn't really be his fault - and then back around again his thoughts run, around and around the same track because he could think of no way to make amends.

All that had changed now. He knew he could leave behind what happened in Mordor and start to think about the rest of his life – maybe even a life with Rosie. _But not if that meant leaving Frodo behind._

Sam felt disgusted with himself. _It's just like Frodo to help me, and I can't help him. __It's like… it's like my dream yesterday morning – only it's not me under the water– it was Frodo drowning, and it was my hand that's slowly pulling away._

Frodo hadn't really escaped Mordor. Frodo was still trapped in that dark place he talked about on the slopes of Mount Doom. _He hadn't been avoiding me because of what I did. He'd been fighting – who knows what - and I wasn't there for him – and then I was off to the hills the first chance I got._ _Well, Frodo is my friend, and no matter how he might be changed, no matter what he needs, I'll be there for him from now on. _Sam straightened his shoulders and looked back at Minas Tirith. _So what if I don't have the answers, so what if I'm worried I'll say the wrong thing? I won't let that matter anymore. I won't leave you to face this alone. I've forgiven you – that's done – now I need to convince you to forgive yourself. I can't truly move on to a new life unless you come with me. I've always found a way to help you in the past, and I'll find a way this time too. I promise._

Sam drew in a deep breath of fresh mountain air then stood up. _I've sat here long enough. _

He was part way down the slope when a shadow swept across his path. With a start he looked up and found that everything had changed around him without him noticing.

The sky was now a strange slate blue, and huge grey clouds were moving fast across the sky coming from the south this time, not from the east. No birds were singing. Instead, they were darting and dodging, swooping in their flight. Even the air felt different, heavier.

_Something big is coming, make no mistake._ The rain that had been held back for so long was finally on its way, and the storm clouds looked ominous.

But even though he knew there wasn't time to spare, Sam only went down the slope at a pace that would ensure he would arrive at the bottom in one piece, and he still had to stop frequently to catch his breath.

When he reached the bottom of the slope, Sam paused to look back down the valley. Banks of grey clouds, piled high, were moving in from the southwest, moving up along the river between the mountains of Mordor and of Gondor. If he wanted to reach the City before the storm broke, he would have to travel quickly. But as he turned to start the long trek through the field along-side the city walls, he stopped, closed his eyes, took a breath, then forced his eyes open and stared hard across Pellenor Fields to Mordor. He forced himself to look at the black mountains and the single plume of ash rising above them. _I'm not afraid of you anymore._

As he half walked and half ran through the field, Sam choked on the ash and dust stirred up by the wind. He covered his mouth and nose with the edge of his cloak. His eyes burned and watered, but he dared not rub them. If he hadn't had the city wall to his left as a guide, he might have been lost, because of the white haze he was stirring up. Gusts of wind blew him forward, pressing his cloak against him, almost creating a sail. At times it was easier to keep his eyes shut and get along as best he could, but he did look up once when he heard a low grumble of thunder above him. Across the grey sky, black clouds were now twisting and roiling ominously. He could smell the rain on the wind. _Hurry!_

As Sam was about to step back into the City, he turned once more to see how close the storm was. There was a grey curtain of rain advancing quickly down the wide valley. As he climbed up, street after street, the wild wind blew doors shut, banged window shutters, and swirled dust and ash all around him. A blinding flash of lightning was followed almost immediately by a crash of thunder that bounced from wall to wall high above him. And then a single, huge raindrop fell on the paving stone in front of him, and then more raindrops fell, making large black circles in the grey dust. Then there were no more rain drops, just rain.

He tried to walk faster, but the stones were slippery now as the ash turned to slick mud. Sheets of rain poured from the sky. A torrent flowed down the city streets, carrying ash with it. To Sam it seemed that all the water in Middle Earth was coming down here and now, like water freed when a dam breaks. His cloak and his clothing underneath were soaking wet and clinging to him. Soon his thoughts turned from his discomfort to his safety. The water running through the streets rose higher. He winced at the feeling that the sludge was scraping the skin off his legs as it swept by him. The going became harder as this small river ran down the city streets from level to level, and at every turn in the road, the debris it carried in its current tumbled and swirled. The hobbit focused on taking one step then the next as he slipped on slippery stones, trying very hard not to be swept away, wiping rain from his eyes.

Sam finally reached the lowest entrance to the castle. He stepped over the high sill into the entrance to the stairway, and he stood gasping for breath. _That was getting too much like swimming in my opinion. _As he started to climb the interior staircase, he shivered. He was drenched and chilled. He could hardly wait to get to his guest room and change his clothes. As he climbed, he thought about the Tree at the top of the City. It was just as well that it hadn't opened its blossoms yet. This storm would have stripped away every leaf and petal.

The storm clouds brought early darkness to Minas Tirith. It was in this twilight, lit periodically by lightning flashes, that Sam reached his guest room. The change of clothing had definitely helped, so he begun looking for Frodo in good spirits, but before long Sam felt uneasy. He had looked everywhere he could think of and still there was no sign of Frodo. Now he was deeply worried. He went into Frodo's chamber by way of the balcony for the third time, and he was about to go into Gandalf's chamber next when he glanced back at the balcony railing. His eyes widened as a terrible thought entered his mind as he remembered that Faramir had found Frodo on the edge of the Citadel. "Not that!" He ran to the railing and stood on his tiptoes to see over the balustrade. In the next lightning flash, through the sheets of spiraling rain, he frantically scanned level after level of the city, but he could see no broken body below.

Sam stepped back and sighed just as Gandalf emerged from his chamber. Sam jumped in surprise, but was immediately glad to find someone at last. "Gandalf, do you know where Frodo is? I need to talk to him, and I can't find him anywhere. I thought he might have..." his voice trailed off. "I don't know what I thought."

Gandalf frowned. "Why would you think Frodo might have …? I do happen to know where Frodo is. I was with him all day in the library. He asked me to show him every reference to the Ring that could be found there."

"What? Why are you encouraging him to dwell on that thing?"

"Sam, I took it as a positive sign. He's looking for answers, and I thought by helping him I might find answers too. I thought it might be my chance to better understand what he has been going through, but I did not gather anything new from our discussions."

"Where is he now? Is he here with you then?"

"No, I was called away to deal with details of tomorrow's coronation ceremony. I left him in the library with one of the palace guards. I was just on my way back down to the library when I thought I should stop here to see if he had already returned and here you are instead."

Sam nodded to Gandalf. "I didn't think to look in the library. I'll go to him there."

Gandalf nodded, "I'll join you there shortly."

Sam picked up the candleholder in his room, and as he started down the corridor, he lit his candle from one of the many torches hanging on the wall. _It must be a full-time job keeping all these corridors lit._ Heading down the spiral staircase that led to the library, he thought, _I don't remember there being this many steps._

Then he heard something that caused his heart to miss a beat. He stopped and strained to hear more. There it was again - a muffled cry from below. It was Frodo's voice. Sam ran down the remaining steps, trying as best he could to shield the candle that he carried. He barely felt the hot wax that spilled on his hand as he hurried towards – what? Anything could be waiting for him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the wild shadows he was throwing on the curved stairway walls as he rushed down the steps.

When at last he reached the library, he froze. He could smell smoke and he saw the flickering light of flames. He couldn't move his feet. He couldn't go towards it.

But Frodo was down here somewhere, and Sam knew what Frodo would do if there places were switched. So he willed himself to take one more step and one more, and soon he was running the rest of the way down. Choking on the smoke, he pressed on.

On the cluttered table in front of him, something flickered and glowed on the surface. When he reached the table, he saw that a candle had fallen over onto the manuscripts spread out there, and some of the white sheets were alight, their edges blackening and curling. Sam righted the candle and covered the burning pages with a book lying nearby to put out the spreading flames. That done, he stood for a moment holding his own candle high, looking around the room. There was no one to be seen – no Frodo and no palace guard.

Let him be all right.

Sam heard a hacking cough, and Frodo cried out, "Belia! I have to find Belia!"

Then Sam saw him lying on the floor, on the other side of the table, backed against the far bookshelf. Frodo's eyes were wide and staring – staring past Sam towards the staircase. Sam glanced over his shoulder and around the room. There was no one else in the room. Again, Frodo screamed "Belia!" and Sam could hear him gasp for breath. Then his gasps became sobs. Frodo was trying to crawl forward, reaching for something, but he couldn't get his breath, and stopped in a spasm of coughing.

Sam called to Frodo as he hurried around the table, but before he could reach him, Frodo had slumped down on the floor.

Sam ran the last few steps, then knelt beside Frodo. Placing his candleholder on the floor, there was just enough light to see Frodo's face clenched as if in pain, but Frodo's breathing was beginning to return to normal. He cast around in this mind –_This place had once been their refuge, the place where they had both escaped the ash, but it isn't a refuge any more. I've got to tell Gandalf what Frodo said. At last I know the name that Frodo has been calling out._

Sam stood up and let his heart beat slow down to a more normal pace while he considered his options. _Well, I've done it before, and I can do it again._ He bent down and began pulling Frodo towards the stairs. It would be long climb, he thought, but Frodo was even lighter. _Why didn't I notice he was slipping away? I've been so worried about my own problems. _

Gandalf voice thundered in the small space, "What has happened, Sam? Is Frodo alright?" A guard scrambled down the last of the stairs behind Gandalf, and stopped horror stricken.

"A candle fell over on the table and started a small fire in some papers. I put it out. I found Frodo on the floor, alone in the library. When I got here, he was terrified. Gandalf, I saw the same horror in his eyes in Mordor. He couldn't breathe, and then he slipped away. We have to help him, Gandalf, and I think we can now. I know the name he's been calling out: it's Belia. That's how we always shorten the name Lobelia. I don't know a Lobelia that Frodo knows too, but I'll ask Merry and Pippin again, this time with the right name."

Gandalf nodded, his face keen with anticipation, "Yes, all right. The guard" and Gandalf gave him a withering glare, "will carry Frodo up to his chamber. Sam, you go find out what you can, and then meet me there. This could be it, Sam; this could be what we've been looking for."

As Sam hurried away, he heard Gandalf say to the unfortunate guard, "And when this is done, I will deal with you."

"Lobelia?" Merry repeated doubtfully. "Wait now – Lobelia. Oh, Pippin – don't you remember? Before Frodo came to live with Bilbo?"

Pippin turned pale. "Oh, not that! I had forgotten.

Sam turned from one to the other, exasperated, "What? Tell me!"

Pippin looked at Merry, and finally, Pippin said, "I'll do it Merry, but let's go together to see Gandalf. I only want to tell the story once."

END OF CHAPTER FIVE


	6. Falling

Spirals by Northern Wolfwillow

CHAPTER SIX

Falling

Gandalf took little satisfaction in being right. As he sat beside Frodo's bed yet again, he nodded to himself. The name that Frodo had been calling out was the key – was the answer that Frodo himself had been seeking.

For days, Gandalf had known something was wrong, and he had feared that he wouldn't solve the mystery in time. One by one he had gathered the clues, like so many pieces of broken pottery. Long into each night, he had mentally picked up each piece, turned it over, and tried to fit it to another piece - trying different combinations, trying to re-create - something. The difficulty had been that, until he heard Pippins story, he had not known what that _something_ was before it had been broken.

And now he knew.

_I should wake him now. Yes, I should wake him._ "Frodo …"

There was no response. Gandalf reached down, took Frodo by the shoulders and gently shook him, calling his name again. Nothing. Muttering a spell under his breath, Gandalf called his name once more.

Frodo shot bolt upright in bed, "No!" He shrank from Gandalf looming over him.

Frodo tried to get his bearings. "What happened? Why am I here? I thought I was in the library. Wasn't I in the library?"

Gandalf heard an edge of panic in Frodo's voice and tried to sound as reassuring as possible. "Yes, you were in the library. There was a small fire. Sam found you there. I brought you back here to your room."

Frodo looked away then spoke more to himself than Gandalf, "How many times will I wake to find you waiting beside my bed? What's happening to me?"

"Frodo, soon I must go to prepare for Aragorn's coronation. But there is something I have to speak with you about first. Something we must talk about."

Lightning lit the covered doorway to the balcony and was followed immediately by a crash of thunder. Frodo started, got up and moved unsteadily to the archway and pulled back the covering. "It's raining! It's raining at last!" He ran across the balcony to the railing and held his hands out as far as possible, reaching for the rain. He sighed, took a deep breath of moist air, and then walked back to the stone bench, and sat down. "After all these weeks, I didn't think it would ever feel the rain again."

Frodo sank back on the bench in the half-light coming from the adjacent rooms, and listened to the rain. Once in a while, a gust of wind carried spray as far back onto the balcony as the bench where he sat. He stared out beyond the railing. For an instant the city was illuminated by a flash of lightning, and then there was just darkness again.

Gandalf sat down beside Frodo. "What dream did I pull you back from just now?" Frodo closed his eyes and inwardly cringed. The storm had distracted him, and for a moment he had forgotten, but now it all came back to him. The truth lay cold and hard in the pit of his stomach. There was no way around what he had read in the library about the Ring. There was no escaping what he had just dreamt. Self-loathing tasted bitter in his mouth as he spoke. "The truth is worse than I thought."

"What truth?"

There was a long pause as Frodo steeled himself. His voice was quiet and low as he answered. "For the longest time, I told myself that the Ring brought darkness to me."

"Yes."

Frodo sat up; rage seethed within him, as if something pent up had suddenly broken free. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. "No! No, the truth is I carried the darkness in me all along. All the Ring did was find it and draw the darkness out. Perhaps I carried less darkness than Smeagol, so it took longer for the Ring to find it, but there was always darkness there."

Gandalf looked surprised by his vehemence. "Frodo, why do you think this?"

The words came fast now, tumbling out, "Lady Galadriel showed me something in her magic mirror that she knew would ensure I carried the Ring to the very end even when I didn't think I had the strength to go another step. In the mirror, the vision I saw was Sam, Merry, and Pippin under the lash and the Shire in flames."

"How horrible!"

"That sounded quite noble, didn't it – I was doing all I could to prevent that vision from coming true, but tonight I dreamt that when I slipped the Ring on my finger in Mount Doom, immediately I was back in the Shire. There in a long line of shackled Hobbits were Sam, Merry, and Pippin. And just then I realized that I was the one holding the whip. I was the one driving them along." Frodo spat out the words in disgust, "And in my dream I laughed - I laughed!

"Don't you see Gandalf, it proves what I am capable of. The Ring didn't bring darkness to me. I carried this darkness all along. Uncle Bilbo, Lady Galadriel, you – all of you - reached for the Ring, but in the end you pushed it away. I didn't. When I had to make the choice, when it mattered most, I kept it." Frodo fought to get the last words out, "The darkness within me must be strong."

Gandalf's voice was calm, "Hmmm. I agree that the Ring found something dark hidden in you to prey upon, but this darkness is not what you think it is."

"What are you saying?" _Hadn't he been listening? Why was he sitting there looking sympathetic when I've told him the worst thing possible?_

"Bear with me, Frodo - and forgive me. It shouldn't have taken this long for me to find the answer. Sometimes I make assumptions and focus on one thing to the exclusion of others. The mind's a funny thing, really. Do you remember in Moria when we sat in front of the three tunnel entrances for hours because I couldn't remember the way? Looking back, I am sure my mind was playing tricks on me – delaying the meeting I knew would come with Old Shadow-and-Flame - but at the time I didn't know why I couldn't remember the right path."

In exasperation, Frodo blurted out, "Gandalf, what does choosing the right passage in a mine have to do with anything I've just told you?

"Frodo, before I woke you just now, I was thinking about what you have been experiencing these two weeks. I was thinking about everything you've told me, and I've noticed a pattern - all your dreams and stories are of fire."

"Of course they are – or they had been until just this past day. The Great Eye was flame, and the Ring brought that vision to me over and over again, whether I wore the Ring or not. The Mountain of Fire could unmake anything. And since I've been in Minas Tirith, I heard about the men of the east burning villages in Rohan. At the Council of Elrond, I saw reflected in the Ring flames that engulfed all the members of the Council - I could go on and on. What does this have to do with what I just told you?" Frodo fought to hold back his growing anger. _What is he trying to do?_

"Frodo, give me a moment. Hobbits are very skilled at solving riddles and puzzles, so let's look at all the things we know as if they were pieces of a puzzle we have not put together the right way. Here I've been trying to put together the pieces to create one picture when the pieces actually reveal quite a different one.

"The mind's a great help to us when terrible things happen. It can help us get through things we find too awful to face at the moment, but the problem is that if we never face these terrible things, we never get over them. The horrible things we never face do not go away. They are there, buried deep within us. You cannot _not_ think about something for a lifetime. These things must be dealt with sometime … someway."

Frodo nodded. "They must be paid for."

Gandalf shook his head, "Only if payment is due. You owe nothing, Frodo."

Frodo's anger flared again, "How can you say that?" He started as a flash of lightning illuminated the balcony. The rumble of thunder that followed reverberated from city wall to city wall. When the last echo had died away, Gandalf continued, "Last night you said that if it hadn't been for Sam you would have died in the fire in the heart Mount Doom and 'that it would have been right.' It made no sense to me at the time."

Frodo stared ahead blankly, and answered tonelessly, "I should have died with them in the flames."

"Them?"

"I mean - Gollum - the Ring - I mean - I was ready to give up my life to destroy the Ring."

"Frodo, you were more than ready. I think you wanted to give up your life in Mount Doom, but I didn't know why - until now."

"But I didn't die there, and I didn't destroy the Ring."

Gandalf quickly went on. "Aragorn said that just before he led the charge towards the Black Gate, Sauron spoke to him and offered him dominion over Men, and Dwarves, and Elves. In Bag End, the Ring offered me knowledge of all the mysteries of white and black magic. What did the Ring offer you?"

Frodo was frustrated with Gandalf's games. He had finally discovered the truth, had found the terrible answer, had bared his soul, had confessed it all, and Gandalf insisted on talking about everything else. "I told you already! It offered me … from the dream … I wanted dominion over the Shire."

"What did you plan to do with this dominion? What would you have gained – what did you want so desperately?"

"I would be the one to decide…"

"Yes? To decide what?"

"I … I would have the power … I would be able to stop the fires of Mordor from spreading to the Shire."

"So, let me see: at the Council of Elrond you saw, flames engulfing the Council, so you stepped forward to take the Ring to Mordor. Each time you put on the Ring, you saw Sauron, the flaming eye. Ah, yes, the Balrog – fire took me away from you too. In Galadriel's mirror, you saw the Shire in flames. And you kept moving towards the Mountain, towards the fire that could unmake everything.

"Now, tell me more about tonight's dream – the dream that showed you why you chose to keep the Ring. You say you saw Sam, Merry, and Pippin in chains. But tell me this, Frodo – was the Shire burning all around them this time?

"Of course not!

"Why?"

This stunned Frodo. "Because … because I stopped the fire from happening.

Pressing his point home, Gandalf continued: "Now we are coming to it. So all this guilt you have been feeling for wanting the Ring – really you wanted the Ring so you could stop the flames of Mordor from coming to the Shire. Why didn't you remember sooner that this was the reason?"

Frodo was completely lost now. He closed his eyes. "I don't know. I must have pushed it away."

"I think you are very good at that, very good at pushing things away. Frodo, all the years that I have known you, I can't remember you ever talking about how your parents died … and your sister."

Frodo sat very still, but his heart was suddenly racing. The palms of his hands felt clammy, and he felt the familiar crushing sense of dread. _Not now! _He was suddenly frantic. He had to do something to stop these questions, stop what was coming next. He quickly got up from the bench, walked to the railing, and gripped it tightly, keeping his back to Gandalf. If he could just keep everything at bay, as he always had, he would be all right. He could not let the memories come. He clenched his teeth and hunched his shoulders forward. Finally, with all the rising voices only he could hear silenced once more, he answered Gandalf without turning back to face him – his voice tight and strained, "I don't talk about it because it's in the past. I've put it behind me."

"Where were you the night of the fire?"

Frodo wheeled around. "What?"

Another flash of lightning. Frodo shrank from the thunderclap that followed, and then started towards his chamber, but in one step Gandalf was beside him, and caught him by the wrist. "Frodo, where were you that night?"

Frodo pulled away, "Why are you doing this to me? Why are you asking this of me?" He could feel grief swelling in this throat. He swallowed hard, and gritted his teeth.

"Where were you, Frodo?"

Looking into Gandalf's eyes he begged, "Please don't do this." But Gandalf did not relent; he asked again, "Frodo, where were you?"

Now it was coming. Shapes and images flashed before Frodo's eyes, and with all his might he willed them away, with every bit of strength he had, he pushed them back. When he could at last see only Gandalf before him once again, he answered, almost against his will. "With … with a friend. We camped out that night in the meadow." With a great effort, he was in control again and could give the answer he knew so well. "I came back the next day, and the neighbours told me what happened."

Frodo had to stop for breath. He felt winded, his arms were tingling, and he had a crushing pain in his chest. It wasn't over, he knew that soon wave after wave of feelings would crash over him, and unless he did something soon, he would drown.

Frodo tried to move into his room, but Gandalf stood in his way. Frodo staggered back until he felt the balcony railing behind him. He braced himself against the railing because he thought he might lose his balance at any moment.

And then Sam's voice brought Frodo back to the present, back to the balcony and the storm lashing the city. "What are you doing? That's enough. Leave him alone!"

Gandalf's loud reply seemed to shake the balcony beneath Frodo's feet, "Samwise Gamgee, you agreed that I would speak to Frodo. I know what I must do. Let me do this before it is too late."

While Gandalf had turned towards Sam, Frodo managed to get to the entrance to his chamber, but he could go no further. He could feel the thick cloth blocking off the doorway, but suddenly his eyes no longer saw the way before his feet. He walked forward pulling down the cloth with him, and he was not in his guest room in Minas Tirith. He was facing a hearth in a room that had only been lit by candlelight moments before. He walked around a table he didn't remember ever being in his room and bumped into a bed he couldn't see.

The guest room around Frodo began to come into focus again. The tangle of shapes and the rush of voices were slowing. He managed to blurt out, "Wait, Sam, wait! I have to know what it all means. I have to see this through. Somehow I have to see this through. If the Ring isn't the cause, but there is an reason for all this, I have to know why." Frodo felt his way around the edge of the bed, until he came to the far wall of his chamber.

He leaned heavily against the wall, relieved that he could both see and feel it. He caught his breath and waited. It swept past him in a rush, and then kept circling, like a great black bird looking for a place to land. With each pass, it was becoming clearer. The memories kept coming and coming, and he kept backing away from them, backing away into the narrow space between his bed and the wall. At last when he found himself in the corner of the room, he slid slowly down to sit on the floor, making himself as small as possible. The memories came closer. If it meant knowing the answer, he would have to see this through – with Gandalf and Sam.

"Frodo?"

Frodo could no longer see Sam or Gandalf, but he answered, his voice sounding far away, "I do remember … something … now." But it made no sense to him because it wasn't fire, but water he remembered. He was searching desperately for someone in deep water. _Who?_

Sam shot a concerned glance at Gandalf and then stepped out of his way, saying over his shoulder "I'm here for you, Mister Frodo." Sam found a place opposite Frodo's bed, and he too sat on the floor.

Frodo could hear Sam's voice, but all he could see was dark water around him. His answer was a whisper, "It was my fault."

"Why?"

I should have come home sooner. I … I promised to come home, but I stayed.

"When did you come home, Frodo?"

"The next day."

"What did you see?"

He passed his hand before his eyes and could not see it. The darkness before him was impenetrable. _Water_. He was in the deep water, but he answered the question, saying the words that had served him in the past. "Our home – our house - was gone. All the burnt timbers had been pulled down."

"Pulled down? That wouldn't have been just the next day? That would have been much later. I think you came back sooner and saw more. When did you come back Frodo? Was it night or day?"

And suddenly Frodo saw daylight, but it was raining. He tried to understand where he was, but the memory kept retreating just out of his reach, back into the corners of his mind where he had kept it for so long.

It had been raining that day, like it was raining now. And then he had it. He knew where he was, and he could see it all, feel it all, hear it all again.

"It was just before noon, and it was raining. I was seven, and my sister, Belia, was two. Mother had said to watch Belia, but Belia could be so annoying. She was bored with playing inside by herself, and wanted to do everything I was doing. She wanted me to read to her, but this time I just wanted to read silently to myself. I was thinking what a nuisance she was. I wished she were never born. I wished she would disappear.

"I was reading by the fire when I heard it."

With his eyes clenched tight, Frodo straining to hear the sounds he knew would come. "She cried out as she slipped down the bank of the millpond and then I heard the splash. I called for my mother, and I ran out of our yard to the edge of the pond, and I jumped into the water."

He opened his eyes as he felt the shock of the cold water. And now the words were coming so fast they tumbled over themselves. "I went down fast. The water was so dark that I couldn't see anything. I kept reaching out, trying to find her. I knew this was happening because of what I had wished. I wished she would disappear, and now I couldn't find her. I ducked down under the water and searched all around me with my hands. I had to come up to breathe twice, but at last I bumped into her. I pulled her up, and then my mother was there, and she pulled Belia onto the shore. She slapped her on the back, and Belia choked up some water and began to cry. "

Frodo stopped talking so he could catch his breath.

"Those were the longest few minutes of my life. I came so close to losing her that day. I had been given another chance to look after her."

And as that memory faded, others took its place - his mother pulling him from the water - hugging him - telling him he was very brave – Belia, wrapped in blankets, sitting by the hearth – he was shivering - his mother handing him dry clothes - praising him for acting so quickly. And then the sharpest memory – the strongest feeling – he remembered how terrible he felt about having let Belia wander away towards the pond. How guilty he felt for having wished her gone.

And then everything stopped, and Frodo could see where he was again, in the narrow space between the bed and the wall. Gandalf was sitting on the floor in front of him, down at the foot of the bed. "That's when I promised myself that I would always take care of Belia. That I would never let anything bad happen to her ever again." Then Frodo looked past Gandalf to where Sam was sitting. "She almost drowned just before the Brother-Sister Festival, Sam. That year, for the first time, I really understood what the festival meant. As Belia gave me the bracelet that Mother had helped her make, I took the vow to protect my sister. I promised to look after her no matter what."

Sam nodded sympathetically to Frodo. Then Gandalf also turned to Sam, clearly puzzled. "Aye, Gandalf, it's a festival you may not have been a part of no matter how much time you spent in the Shire. It's more a family celebration, than a festival. Sisters weave bracelets for their brothers, and brothers vow to protect their sisters …" Sam swallowed "… always."

Frodo was desperate to shut everything out, desperate to stop what was happening. _That was enough._ He resolved that he would remember no more. To remember that much had felt like something had been torn from him. _That is all I will allow._ And then he felt it. Just beyond his sight, something was approaching, rising, higher and higher, coming towards him like a massive wave, a force welling up slowly and then racing towards him. He had to push it back. He had to hold it back.

"Frodo."

It was Gandalf's voice. "Frodo, that was long before the fire. Pippin says you were nine when you came to live with Bilbo. Tell me about the fire. When did you come home – was it night or day?"

Frodo shook his head as if trying to cast something away. He could feel his defenses were crumbling, one by one. He could feel it coming.

In a rush, his mind filled with more images that he never wanted to see again, and his heart was filled with feelings he never wanted to feel again. He closed his eyes against the deep ache of the guilt. "If only I had come back when I should have … it would never have happened."

"Was it night or day when you returned?"

Frodo answered quickly, automatically, "It was day. I came back the next morning after the fire. It was d-…" _No, wait - it was night._ The pieces had changed. The pieces of the story he had created - the story he had told himself over and over - the pieces of the story didn't fit together anymore. The swirling images before his eyes did not match what he thought he remembered. _It was night! _And he couldn't stop the memories from breaking through.

"I remember now – it was night. My friend and I were camping in the glen, and I saw the glow of a fire in the distance."

"What did you do? What did you feel?"

_Feel?_ His mind reeled, and he couldn't hear what Gandalf was saying. With an effort he dragged his mind back to the task set by Gandalf. _Feel?_ He had not allowed himself to feel anything connected to that night for so long. He hadn't allowed himself to remember what he couldn't live with. He knew that along with the images, all the feelings were there too, still waiting there just outside his defenses, and at last they were finding a way through. He forced out the words one by one, with difficulty, each one a stabbing pain. "Dread. A feeling of dread came over me. The glow was from under the hill where my home was. I was sure of it." His voice cracked. "I ran. I ran all the way. I lost my way in a cornfield, so it took me longer than it should have until I was out and running in the right direction again. When I got there I wanted to go in, I had to go to them. The neighbors wouldn't let me. I fought, but they held me back!" He could feel all the wild desperation and despair of that time again.

"And then? What happened next?

"Nothing."

"Frodo there must be more. What happened when the fire was out?"

"A neighbor took me home."

"And then?"

"There's nothing more to tell!" He could hear the panic in his own voice, and he couldn't seem to catch his breath.

"Frodo, you have to finish the story. If there is nothing more to tell about that night … Frodo - the next day - what do you remember of the next day?"

Frodo could hear the blood pounding in his ears. He could feel his hands shaking, so he closed them into fists. Cold sweat beaded on his face, and his shirt was sticking to his back, chilling him. The dread was so intense, he felt nauseous. Anguish tightened around his heart like a vice. Every part of him screamed for release. He knew at any moment the whirlwind of colour and sound could start up again, and he had to stop it this time because he would not remember - that. He tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone as dry as a stone.

It was coming. What he didn't want to remember was there behind the wall that he had built with practice years ago. In the days that followed the fire, each time he thought of his family, his world crashed down around him. It had hurt so much that he couldn't let it happen again and again, so he had taken the memories of that night - and the next morning – and finally all the memories of his mother, his father, and his sister – everything that caused him so much pain - and he had put it all on the other side of the wall. Again and again, he pushed the memories away until at last they were completely separate from him; separate from the life he begun when he went to live with his uncle. In time, he forgot what was behind the wall, and then he forgot that there was a wall.

But now the wall was crumbling. Memories were rising like the sea. Frodo bent his head forward fighting nausea, knowing that when the wall failed completely, there would be nothing between him and the memory of that morning.

Gandalf said softly, "There are locked doors in your mind, and dark rooms behind them. You must go inside and tell me what you find there."

For a moment, Frodo could see Gandalf's face, and then he was inside a small room he had not seen in years. He started to tell Gandalf what he saw. "I lay there on the bed in our neighbour's house – exactly where they left me that night. I couldn't move. I couldn't cry. I couldn't sleep - but they thought I was asleep. Early in the morning, through the open window, I heard low voices outside. Then the voices moved away as the men walked down the lane towards - where my home had been."

"Frodo, what did you do?

"I … I left by the bedroom window and followed them. Not along the lane where they were walking - I went across the lawn and over the fence. I hid behind a hedge near my home and watched."

It was coming. The thing he didn't want to remember. The thing he didn't want to think about. The thing he didn't want to see. He shuddered. _I'm so cold._

Frodo pressed his back against the wall as if he were barring a door against all the fiends of Mordor, but he knew he had no reserves left. Nothing left to fight with. He would have to let go now, and he was terrified of what would happen when he did.

"Why did you hide from the men?"

"Because they didn't want me there."

"Why didn't they want you there, Frodo?"

"I had to know what had happened to Belia, and they didn't want me to see." It was getting harder and harder to concentrate. It was getting harder to breathe, as if a great weight were pressing down, heavier and heavier, on his chest.

"To see what, Frodo?

"To see - what I saw."

"To see what?"

"They went into my house."

"What did they take into the house?"

"Bright white sheets."

"And what did they take out of the house in the bright white sheets?"

There it was. He could see it. And then the words spilled out. He was saying the words. After running so far to avoid this moment, he was making it real.

There was anguish in his voice, "Darkness. My … my family. I saw my family and then the smell of…. I ran away, I fell. I was sick. I ran back to the neighbor's house. I went back in through the bedroom window, and I lay back down on the bed."

The tears he had been holding back spilled over his cheeks, burning him. The wall broke inside him. He had seen what he wasn't meant to see. He didn't want to see anymore. He didn't want to be anymore.

_I can't bear this._ _It's too much._ This was why he had pushed it all away years ago, why he had barricaded it all away. He couldn't stand the terrible emptiness – and aching absence that he felt inside. There was nothing inside him – it had all been torn away – there was nothing - just a hollow where his family had been. He did not want to be alone in the emptiness. He couldn't stand feeling this way, so he had fought to push his memories away – to push his pain away. But he couldn't keep it at bay any longer. A wave of grief crashed over him, choking him.

And then he wept. His grief was raw and fresh, as if he had just lost them this night. Gandalf reached out then, and pulled Frodo to him. Frodo buried his face in Gandalf's shoulder and poured out all the grief, and guilt, and loss, holding nothing back, great sobs ripping from this throat.

"Belia … I should have been there … if I had been there, I could have …"

Gandalf cut him off, "You don't know if you could have saved her. You'll never know, but you might have perished too. It is not your fault. It simply happened."

"You can't live in grief, but you must go through it – but you don't need to go through it alone this time."

Slowly Sam became aware of how cold the stone floor was. He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. With the back of his hand he brushed away his tears.

And after all these days in Minis Tirith, at last Sam knew what Frodo was feeling – not all of it of course, but loss – Sam knew something about loss.

As Sam watched Frodo, now seated on the edge of his bed, Sam saw his mother's deathbed. Where Frodo now perched, Sam saw himself kneeling, clinging to his mother's hand. Across from Sam, kneeling and clinging to his mother's other hand, was Sam's father. Sam remembered it felt like he and his father were trying to keep her with them by force of will. He had thought if he just didn't let go of his mother's hand….

She had fought to stay, but in the end the midwife could do nothing more. The baby boy had died, and Sam's mother had followed soon after. But at least there had been time to say good-bye to her.

"Look after him," were her last words. It hadn't been clear to Sam then if she had meant for Sam to look after his father or his father to look after Sam. Sam had clung to her hand and cried as her life had ebbed away. Only now Sam realized that there had been a third _he_. His mother had died not knowing the baby boy had not lived. "Look after him."

Sam saw Frodo once more seated on the edge of the bed.

If his little brother had lived, he would have been Frodo's age now.

Many things had changed for Sam because of what had happened this night. One thing would not change. Sam would continue to look after Frodo. He had no idea what Frodo would need, but he would be there for Frodo, no matter what.

Look after him. _Aye, I can do that._

Gandalf was saying something once again, and Sam was missing it.

"Frodo, I think that this was the only darkness you carried with you to Mount Doom – the darkness the Ring found. It hurts to remember, but there is harm in forgetting. Sleep if you can – it will help."

Frodo didn't really understand what Gandalf was saying. Nothing was real beyond that night and that morning. Nothing was real except the grief – and the tearing, ripping loss. It was all back. Nothing would help. Nothing would ever be all right again.

Frodo's eyes were swollen and unfocused, but he could see Gandalf and Sam now. His throat was raw, but at last he managed to put words together and push past the anguish of his loss, "It's my fault. I failed, I failed her - I … promised … to always … look after her."

Sam scrambled to his feet and cast about to find words of comfort, but the words were slippery. Then he knew. "I know you promised, Mister Frodo, but if you did all you could to keep the promise, then you have to forgive yourself. There can't be forgiveness for everybody else but none for you."

Frodo nodded, not really understanding, completely spent. Then he pushed himself back on the bed, and rolled over, face down. He didn't know how he would go on.

At first all he could feel was grief, but as he lay there, physically drained, he felt something else too - the moment of honesty had loosened something deep inside, as if his breath had been held in a fist that was slowing beginning to open. His eyes eventually drifted shut. He slept, although he did not think he could.

When he was sure Frodo was asleep, Gandalf turned to face Sam. Gandalf muttered in a low voice perhaps to himself as much as to Sam.

"Yes, that is the last piece of the puzzle. I knew there was something more, and now I know what it is. It makes a terrible kind of sense. That was the trigger for all of this. The day both you and Frodo fell ill – but for Frodo, his mysterious illness was so much more. I have long known that the sense of smell could bring back emotions – that emotions arrive first, and only later come the details of the memory. So that morning when they began to burn the bodies in the field, and the smell that drifted into the city… that smell had linked Frodo back to emotions of that time so long ago in the Shire, but only now has he recognized all those memories he had completely pushed away. The emotions and great hurt came first, and only later the memories. Yes, now we know what has been happening with him these last few days. But what has the Ring done as well?"

Gandalf helped Sam pull one of the chairs back towards the bed. Sam nodded, and then climbed up on the chair. Gandalf nodded back, walked past Sam, went out onto the balcony, and sank down on the stone bench.

END OF CHAPTER SIX


	7. Flight

Spirals by Northern Wolfwillow

CHAPTER SEVEN Flight

It was night and the entire Shire was ablaze in the distance. No, Frodo realized, it was just one house under one hill that was on fire, but for him it might as well be the whole world in flames.

He ran as fast as he could. He ran until his lungs felt as if they would burst. He had to stop, he had to catch his breath, but there wasn't a moment to lose, so he ran on, each breath a gasp. He stumbled over a rock in the dark and pitched forward onto the grass. He staggered to his feet and ran into the cornfield that stood between him and his family. He crashed through the corn, forcing a path through, afraid that he'd lose his way if he turned even a little to the left or the right, afraid he'd lose precious seconds. _It's taking too long._ No matter what he did, it felt like he was no closer than when he started. _It is my house that's on fire - it is – I know it! Are my parents all right? Where's Belia? I should have been home! _He was gasping for air and sobbing at the same time.

He stumbled over to the apple tree at the edge of his yard, leaned a hand against the trunk for a moment, recovered, and then ran on. Others were running beside him. Somewhere in his mind he noted that he wasn't looking up at the adults as he had done that night. That night he was a child looking up at the others running towards his house; now he was as tall as they.

A line had formed between the millpond and the burning house, and they were passing buckets of water from one to the other as fast as they could. Frodo gave a fleeting thought to Sam and the bucket brigade watering the tree in the Citadel, and then he saw flames lapping out of the windows of his home.

As he ran towards his house, he scanned every face in the crowd that had gathered. A neighbor was at the head of the bucket brigade, "Where are my parents? My sister?" The neighbor looked at him, opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head.

_No! _He wheeled around to run in the front door, but the man caught him and held him back as embers and sparks rained down all around him, the heat and the smoke choking him. "You have to let me go!" And suddenly, he was free. Before him was the front door, a circle in flames. He paused. He knew what lay beyond, and yet he knew he had to go through. As he passed through the front door, he thought to himself, _this isn't how it was_, and …

Night changed to day. There was no fire. He was running through a room, but this wasn't his home. It was his guest chamber in Minas Tirith. His run ended at the balcony's stone railing. The bright sun reflected off the white stone walls of the city all around him. In the distance, he could see the black mountains bordering Mordor. He stood there, his heart pounding, his breathing coming fast and shallow. He knew he had to climb up, that he had to be high enough to ... what? He closed his eyes and began to climb onto the balustrade.

Frodo balanced on the stone railing, looking down to the city stretching out level by level below him. He paused, waiting - for what, he was not sure.

And he cried out when he felt the claws wrap around his waist, as if he had been seized in a giant fist, and he was jerked up and away.

_Nazgul! They've found me! No, no, not back to Mordor!_ Here it was - what he had dreaded most of all - the journey back. But then he fought back his panic. No, he realized, going back to Mordor wasn't what he feared most.

Then he opened his eyes, and looked ahead. Beyond the black mountains was a single grey-green plume of ash. There was no darkness, no red glow under a roof of black, rolling clouds.

He looked down and saw the shadow of his captor sweep over the lush green crops in Pelennor Field. It wasn't a fell beast that held him – it was an Eagle. And then at that moment another Eagle flew below, and he was falling…

Onto the back of the second Eagle. Frodo found purchase between the Eagle's wings and held on tightly. He bent low over its neck, bracing himself against the wind that swept over him. Effortlessly, the Eagle soared, turning on the wind, climbing higher and higher with the air currents. Then it shifted its wings and flew away from Mordor, over the White Mountains, over Lothlorien, then over the Misty Mountains. And with every moment, Frodo's sense of dread grew.

But as the Eagle flew over the Shire, it did not alter its flight; it kept on to the western shores of Middle-Earth. Frodo breathed a slow sigh and began to enjoy the exquisite feeling of flying.

He had never seen the sea before. _I had somehow imagined it would be like a very large lake_. This was so much more. The sky was clear, but very far away he could see anvil-shaped clouds dwarfed by the immensity of the sky and the sea. Near shore, the sea was the deepest blue he had ever seen. As the Eagle flew further he began to notice white lines on the steely blue – wave crests moving towards the shore. The sea was endless – so much greater than the land and all the troubles of all the people living there. Frodo knew that the sea would remain long after the land had worn away.

As he looked down, he saw that each rolling wave followed others that had gone before, and each wave was followed by others yet to come, and somehow that thought comforted him.

As the Eagle began circling over the sea, it also spiraled upward. Although they flew again and again above the same place, what Frodo saw changed with each turning. The waves below them did not look the same as they had a cycle before. As the Eagle flew higher and higher into the clear sky, the sea below now looked smooth and silvery. And at that moment, he knew that when he came back to the Shire he would not be the same, it would not be the same, but that it would be all right somehow.

The Eagle's flight changed. They must be very high– the sea looked as flat as glass with no waves in sight. He saw a feather fall from the Eagle's wing. But the feather touched water almost immediately, sending a circle of ripples radiating out to the edges … of a pond. The Eagle touched down on the turf, and Frodo slid down off its back. He stood still. _Of course_, he thought, _it's the millpond where I almost lost Belia._ He knew if he turned around, he would see the empty space, the uninhabited hill that once had been his home. He clenched his eyes shut so he wouldn't have to see it.

But closing his eyes did not stop his ears. He heard a voice that he thought he would never hear again, "Lobelia – come in for supper!" His heart missed a beat. His shoulders stiffened as if he were anticipating another blow. He opened his eyes, and at his feet, he saw wild flowers. Small blue flowers. Lobelia.

Then he heard a rustling of leaves nearby, and without looking, Frodo knew the source of the sound. There was only one tree near the millpond, an apple tree that stood by his family's yard. It had been carefully pruned each year to keep the fruit-bearing branches low to the ground for easy picking, which meant it was a tree that was easy for Belia to climb, and she loved to climb that tree.

He heard the rustling sound again. He braced himself, and then he heard a familiar squeal of delight and a small voice calling out "Fro, Fro, Frodo!" from the centre of the tree.

He paused, before he turned. He breathed in the faint perfume of the apple blossoms, and steeled himself. And then he did what he had done so many times before – he walked towards the tree, bent down to get beneath the lowest branch, and then he positioned himself as close to the tree trunk as he could. He held perfectly still and then he felt Belia's right foot on his right shoulder, then her left foot on his left shoulder as she stepped from the crook in the tree. He knew she was hanging onto a bough higher up the tree until at last she slipped her feet forward, and she was sitting on his shoulders. The tricky part had always been getting her safely out from under the tree branches so he could give her a piggyback ride to their house. It was trickier still this time because he wasn't nine anymore.

The distance to the house was shorter than he remembered, so he took time to walk back past their father's wood working shop. The scent from the cedar shavings on the floor was sweet and strong.

And then Frodo stood before the front door of his home – intact and ordinary - not a barrier he could not cross, not a portal beyond which there was only horror.

He opened the door and felt Belia hunch down as low as she could so her face was next to his. She smelled like new mown grass, and her breath was warm on his cheek. Frodo carried Belia carefully through the door. The smell of fresh baked bread from earlier in the day still lingered, even in the entrance hall.

There was the familiar clatter of dishes coming from the kitchen. His mother was there with her back to the front hallway. As Frodo closed the front door behind them and started to walk towards her, she called out without turning around "Belia, wash for supper!" Belia groaned then giggled, and Frodo changed direction to go to the washstand. Belia giggled again and called out, "Ahhhh, but I already washed for tea." The answer came back, "Now wash for supper." He swung his sister down off his shoulders and onto the small wooden stool that stood next to the stand holding the basin and jug – the small step stool that his father had made for Belia, the stool that his father had lovingly covered with tiny carvings of trees and leaves. Hot water had already been poured in the basin so it was easy for Belia and Frodo to wash their hands. "With soap!" came further directions from the kitchen.

As Belia continued to splash, Frodo stepped back and looked around. He drank in the details. He had not been here for a very long time. From the parlor, he heard the ticking of the clock on the mantle, the clock his father wound at the end of each day. There by the fireplace was his mother's spindle, She had linen on her loom today.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the white blur that was Belia, running into the paneled dining room. Frodo followed Belia as far as the doorway, and then stopped. He braced himself because he did not know what would happen next. His parents were sitting at the table with their backs to the blazing hearth. _This is what I saw in the castle corridor._ Frodo's heart beat faster as he waited for a wall of fire to appear and separate him from his family. _No, this could be a memory of any supper, any day_. Except this couldn't be just any day. He noticed there were only three settings on the table, with no setting at his usual place.

His family was busy talking and paid no attention to him, as if they couldn't see him, so he simply stood in the doorway and let the sound of the teasing and the banter wash over him. He just wanted to take it all in – to be with them.

Frodo had missed these memories. He had missed them.

"When is Frodo coming back?" Belia asked. Frodo froze in place.

Mother sighed. "Remember, Belia, you asked the same thing at teatime. One more sleep, then breakfast, then by the time you are eating second breakfast tomorrow, Frodo will be home. That's when I said he must be back. That's when he promised to be back."

Frodo fought both dread and confusion. So he was away, and tonight would be the fire – but he couldn't make sense of what he had just heard. _I wasn't supposed to arrive home until mid-morning of the next day. I didn't fail them. I wasn't late. _

As Frodo awoke – as he swam up towards the surface – he did not want to leave his family behind. Now that he was finally home, he fought to stay there. He didn't want to lose them again. _It's a dream. Only a dream, and it's fading away._ No, it wasn't actually fading: he still remembered. He stopped fighting and opened his eyes. He was lying on his bed in his guest room in Minas Tirith, still wearing his clothes from the day before. _I can remember it all - the fire and the morning that followed – and all the memories of my family before the fire._ They would not be lost.

He remembered what he had promised. He was only supposed to come home the next day. He came back early, but not early enough.

The realization was gradual, but it seemed sudden. _I promised. I promised that I'd always look after Lobelia … and I couldn't. There was nothing I could have done._

He blinked his eyes. They were sore from the tears he had shed the night before. He glanced out towards the balcony. He could see the pale rectangle that was the doorway, a hint of the dawn to come. He could hear no sound of wind or rain. _The storm must have passed._

Someone stirred nearby. There was just enough light in the room for Frodo to make out Sam turning in his sleep, half in and half out of the chair that stood at the foot of the bed. _He must have stayed nearby all night. Thank you, Sam. You are always there for me. _

Frodo slowly sat up. Trying to make as little noise as possible, he eased off the bed, moving with slow deliberation. He stood still for a moment to be sure he had his balance because his head felt light. As he began to walk towards the balcony, Sam stirred again, and Frodo stood very still until he heard no more sounds.

As he stepped out on the balcony, Frodo saw that he was alone. Gandalf would have gone to prepare for ceremony. He sat down on the damp stone bench, and waited for morning, the morning of Aragorn's coronation.

At last it was over. He had been so adept at setting up barriers and keeping things he couldn't deal with at bay, but now all the barriers were gone. It was over.

And then he understood. The answers came together. The jagged pieces of his life fell into place. He knew why the quest had been given to him.

One event had set his life in motion, one thing led to another, until he reached this moment. The fire; going to live with Bilbo; taking up the Ring.

His early struggle– however misdirected – the way he coped with losing everything that mattered to him - his inner battle to control the horror, the guilt, and the grief that he felt - his fight so that those feeling would never rise up and catch him off guard – that struggle had prepared him for his battle with the will of the Ring. That was why he had been chosen to carry it. He was chosen for his ability to push down beneath the surface that which he could not allow to emerge.

And he had fought the Ring as hard as he could with his mind and with his will. He held on longer than he had thought possible. And when he felt his defenses beginning to fail, he held on longer still. He was able to stay the course almost to the end … until Mordor. Then he could hold nothing back. With his waking eyes, he saw Sauron before him at all times – the Great Eye and all the other horrors in the Dark Land. By then he had little left with which to resist the Ring. By then almost all his defenses had been torn away.

Looking back on his nightmare journey across Mordor, he knew now that some of what he had seen before him was his own memories starting to come back to him.

Yet somehow he had kept that one memory, the memory he feared the most, back in the recesses of his mind – until the morning they began to burn the bodies in Pelennor Field. The smell – the sickly stench of burning flesh that had seemed oddly familiar - had brought back the emotions of that terrible morning when he had followed the men to his burned out home. But still he had continued to fight to hold back the actual memories.

Suddenly it struck him that he had never said goodbye to his family. He had never reconciled the two strongest memories he had: his parents and his sister enjoying a meal together – and what remained of his family the morning after the fire – what had been brought out of his home in those white sheets.

Because the two memories had been impossible for him to separate, he had blanked out all memories, and he had lost his family more surely that way. Yes, the pain and loss were back, but so were his memories of Belia as she was then, so full of mischief, and memories of his parents, so loving and supportive.

And then he knew what he would do. There was a third place where he might be able to bring these two memories together. A place he had never visited. A grassy field marked with three stones.

After the fire, friends of his family had found him shivering in the back bedroom of the neighbour's house. They were concerned that he had contracted some sort of fever from the shock of losing his family. He did not go to the funeral, and when he had recovered, they had shushed him, soothed him, and taken him away from his previous life and on to his new life with Bilbo. There was a silence around him. He had had no one to talk to, no way to give voice to what he had lost, no way to move on because no one ever mentioned his family, his loss.

No one had ever taken him to see their graves. He would return to the Shire, and he would say goodbye.

He felt something deep and raw inside him healing at last.

A soft breeze blew in from the southwest, and he looked up. There were just a few white clouds in the sky. He purposefully focused on the sky above the saw-toothed mountains of Mordor. As he watched, the sky along the horizon turned a pale rose that tinged the few clouds left in the sky.

He took a deep breath - the first unfettered one he could recall in a very long time. The storm had passed and the air felt fresh and cool. And all at once Frodo realized that all he felt was - peace.

He didn't want the moment to end. The longer it lasted, the more he didn't want it to disappear. He shut his eyes and simply breathed.

Very close to him, he heard birdsong. Frodo opened his eyes slowly, and saw the singer - a small brown bird on the balcony railing no larger than a sparrow with white wing tips. It sang a few more notes before flying away. He focused on the dawn. The color and light spread out and mixed all along the horizon: the pink turned pale yellow, and then blue – robin's egg blue. Everything was bathed in the softest light.

For the first time since he came to Minas Tirith, he looked out from this balcony straight east and could clearly see the mountains of Mordor in sharp detail, with no haze obstructing them. And somehow, now that he could clearly see the dark peaks, it was easier to turn away. Yes, he saw the black gash on the horizon, but what he noticed now was how small it seemed compared to the huge blue sky above.

As he looked up, he saw something white flutter down from above. The ash that had blanketed the city had been washed down off the walls of the balcony, but it was not completely gone. At his feet was a pool of water containing a border of grey. As he watched, the white flutter settled on the water. He stood up, bent down, and picked up what had fallen so gently onto the balcony. It was a white petal with a fragrance as faint as an apple blossom, but more exotic. Apple blossoms. He would never bury that memory again. When he saw apple trees in bloom, he would think of Belia climbing. He held the single petal for a long time, then carefully tucked it in his pocket. A touch of nature. A touch of hope.

He returned to the bench and looked east once more. _When I visit Belia's grave, I'll bring her favourite flower, and …_

Frodo heard a laugh. Slowly he turned to see Belia at the far end of the balcony. She was dashing back and forth trying to catch the falling petals.

Frodo clamped his eyes shut and listened to the pounding of his heart for long minutes before he forced himself to slowly open his eyes.

Sam stood, standing in the doorway of his chamber, looking out at the sunrise.

Frodo could tell from Sam's face that he could not see Belia, yet with absolute certainty Frodo knew that Sam was real and that his sister was not. _Sam was always real. Even when I couldn't see Sam, if I could just hear his voice, he somehow found a way to bring me back to what was real. My friends are real, and what they did for me is real. Gandalf had promised to help him as long as the Ring was his burden. Sam had promised to stay with him. And they had._

_I know there will be darkness,_ as he glanced once more to the jagged black mountain peaks in the distance – _but there will be hope and light too. Is it enough? Can I go on? _

Sam stepped forward and looked down at Frodo sitting on the stone bench. He gave him a smile and said, "Your friends are waiting for you on the Citadel." He held out his hand to help Frodo up.

Frodo glanced from Belia dancing, to the balcony railing, and then up at Sam. He made his choice.

He reached up.

THE END OF "SPIRALS"


End file.
